Flight profile · United Airlines
UA1787
Denver (DEN) to Omaha (OMA) · scheduled 9:05 PM – 11:15 PM
How UA1787 performs
823 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA1787 arrived on time 70.6% of the time, against 75.4% for all DEN → OMA flights, so this departure is 4.8 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 6.0 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 823 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA1787 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA1787 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1787 | 70.6% | 0.97% | -1 min | 12.2% | 823 |
| United Airlines on DEN → OMA | 76.6% | 0.82% | -4 min | 9.0% | 4,293 |
| All DEN → OMA flights | 75.4% | 0.80% | -3 min | 8.0% | 10,140 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA1787 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 UA1787 on DEN → OMA. 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 UA1787 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA1787 pushed back an average of 42 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 2 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into DEN just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 729 of 816 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 | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA1787 | 28% | 58% | 11% |
| Network, same turn | 17% | 68% | 9% |
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 UA1787’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA1787 left 15 or more minutes late is lower than the network’s.
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 DEN late, does that still matter by the time it reaches OMA?
UA1787 pushes back an average of 20.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at OMA an average of 17.3 minutes late. The 2.9 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. Its 18.5 minutes on the taxiways at DEN is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at OMA, UA1787 spends 6.4 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 1.1 minutes longer than a typical OMA arrival (5.3 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 OMA. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 33,624 departures from DEN scheduled in the clock hour UA1787 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at OMA (75,011 flights), not just UA1787’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves DEN
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. UA1787 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 33,624 departures from DEN are scheduled in the 9 PM–10 PM hour over the period, against 963,099 across the whole day.
UA1787 is scheduled out of DEN at 9:05 PM, in the 9 PM–10 PM bank. Departures from DEN in that hour arrive on time 67.5% of the time against 76.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 8.6 points worse before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from DEN 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.
Other routes UA1787 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PDX→DEN Portland to Denver | December 18, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 220 | 84.1% |
| IAH→DEN Houston to Denver | December 2–17, 2025 | 16 | — |
| ORD→DSM Chicago to Des Moines | October 27, 2025 – December 1, 2025 | 20 | — |
| BOS→DEN Boston to Denver | November 29–30, 2025 | 2 | — |
| ATL→IAD Atlanta to Washington | November 2–26, 2025 | 4 | — |
| PHX→DEN Phoenix to Denver | September 25–30, 2025 | 5 | — |
| TYS→DEN Knoxville/Maryville to Denver | June 26, 2025 – August 18, 2025 | 54 | — |
| LAS→DEN Las Vegas to Denver | March 30, 2025 – April 30, 2025 | 32 | — |
| PSP→DEN Palm Springs to Denver | March 6–28, 2025 | 20 | — |
| TUS→DEN Tucson to Denver | February 13, 2025 – March 5, 2025 | 21 | — |
| SJC→DEN San Jose to Denver | October 27–31, 2024 | 5 | — |
| RNO→DEN Reno to Denver | August 1, 2023 – September 25, 2024 | 103 | 78.4% |
| SEA→DEN Seattle to Denver | March 31, 2024 – June 26, 2024 | 36 | — |
| SMF→DEN Sacramento to Denver | October 29, 2023 – March 30, 2024 | 153 | 91.4% |
| MKE→DEN Milwaukee to Denver | July 1–31, 2023 | 31 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA1787 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.
72 min late
against a median of 1 min early
UA1787 has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 1 min early, but the worst tenth are 73 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 823 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1586 | United Airlines | 84.0% | 6 min early | 846 |
| UA2327 | United Airlines | 82.7% | 8 min early | 780 |
| UA1787 this flight | United Airlines | 70.6% | 1 min early | 823 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA1787 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 823 records of UA1787 operating DEN → OMA, 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