Carrier route record
UAXNA→DEN
United Airlines · Bentonville to Denver
- Flights
- 370
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on XNA to DEN lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 370 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on XNA to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 366 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on XNA to DEN, 1,280 flights
These figures cover 370 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on XNA to DEN
United flew 370 of the 1,280 flights on XNA to DEN, about 29% of it. Its 80.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.1% to Frontier at 76.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 370 | 80.1% | 65 min | 1.08% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 765 | 79.3% | 81 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 145 | 76.4% | 98 min | 0.69% | B+ |
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 370 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split United's XNA to DEN record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 80.1% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
United on XNA to DEN through the year
June is the worst month at 63.6% on time, 26 points below April, the best at 90.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 33 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 4,750 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 52%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,449 of the 4,750 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,750 reported delay minutes.
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,652 minutes out of 4,750, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 616 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.6% on time across 370 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 370 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking United on XNA to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 370 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 366 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- XNA to DEN, every carrier
- United on DEN to XNA, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on XNA to DEN79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on XNA to DEN76.4%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.