Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1520
Orlando (MCO) to Denver (DEN) · scheduled 12:25 PM – 3:00 PM
How UA1520 performs
1,103 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA1520 arrived on time 86.6% of the time, against 77.4% for all MCO → DEN flights, so this departure is 9.2 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 4.2 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,103 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA1520 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1520 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1520 | 86.6% | 0.63% | -15 min | 5.9% | 1,103 |
| United Airlines on MCO → DEN | 82.4% | 1.24% | -9 min | 6.5% | 5,731 |
| All MCO → DEN flights | 77.4% | 1.11% | -6 min | 7.6% | 14,350 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA1520 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for UA1520 on MCO → DEN. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies UA1520 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
The aircraft flying UA1520 came in 15 or more minutes late on 12% of the departures where its previous flight is known. There are not enough departures in both groups to say how the flight left after a late one and after an on-time one.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into MCO just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 814 of 1,096 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late |
|---|---|
| UA1520 | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 17% |
The schedule leaves a normal turn: enough time to clean and board if the aircraft is on time, little to spare if it is not.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 60 to 89 minutes. How often UA1520’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s. There are not enough departures in both groups to compare how it left.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves MCO late, does that still matter by the time it reaches DEN?
UA1520 pushes back an average of 8.8 minutes late and reaches the gate at DEN an average of 2.6 minutes early. The 11.4 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 16.8 minutes on the taxiways at MCO, 2.8 minutes shorter than a typical MCO departure in the same hour.
On arrival at DEN, UA1520 spends 8.1 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.6 minutes shorter than a typical DEN arrival (9.8 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached DEN. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 24,929 departures from MCO scheduled in the clock hour UA1520 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at DEN (963,027 flights), not just UA1520’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves MCO
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1520 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 24,929 departures from MCO are scheduled in the 12 PM–1 PM hour over the period, against 498,221 across the whole day.
UA1520 is scheduled out of MCO at 12:25 PM, in the 12 PM–1 PM bank. Departures from MCO in that hour arrive on time 75.5% of the time against 74.8% across the airport’s whole day, so the hour UA1520 leaves in is an ordinary one for MCO and explains nothing about its record either way.
The two airport figures cover every departure from MCO to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
By day of week
Does UA1520 run worse on particular days?
Monday is historically the most reliable day and Tuesday the least, a gap of 11.0 percentage points.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Days with fewer than 120 operations are not scored.
Other routes UA1520 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| EWR→MCO Newark to Orlando | September 25, 2025 – May 20, 2026 | 84 | — |
| DEN→BDL Denver to Hartford | October 26, 2025 – December 1, 2025 | 35 | — |
| DEN→LAS Denver to Las Vegas | May 22–30, 2025 | 6 | — |
| IAD→MCO Washington to Orlando | February 13, 2025 – March 29, 2025 | 45 | — |
| DEN→BOI Denver to Boise | July 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 64 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1520 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
26 min late
against a median of 15 min early
Percentiles over 1,103 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1022 | United Airlines | 87.1% | 11 min early | 689 |
| UA1520 this flight | United Airlines | 86.6% | 15 min early | 1,103 |
| F91733 | Frontier Airlines | 85.5% | 12 min early | 816 |
| F93311 | Frontier Airlines | 70.8% | 6 min early | 883 |
| UA1602 | United Airlines | 66.0% | 0 min early | 613 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1520 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 1,103 records of UA1520 operating MCO → DEN, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed