Flight profile · United Airlines
UA2132
Denver (DEN) to Sacramento (SMF) · scheduled 7:15 PM – 9:12 PM
How UA2132 performs
1,085 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
UA2132 arrived on time 73.2% of the time, against 74.5% for all DEN → SMF flights, so this departure is 1.3 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against United Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 7.4 points worse.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 1,085 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If UA2132 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where UA2132 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2132 | 73.2% | 0.83% | -2 min | 9.1% | 1,085 |
| United Airlines on DEN → SMF | 80.6% | 0.59% | -7 min | 7.1% | 5,728 |
| All DEN → SMF flights | 74.5% | 0.59% | -2 min | 8.0% | 12,300 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why UA2132 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 UA2132 on DEN → SMF. 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 UA2132 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, UA2132 pushed back an average of 45 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 7 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, 943 of 1,077 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA2132 | 23% | 62% | 16% |
| 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 UA2132’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often UA2132 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 SMF?
UA2132 pushes back an average of 18.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at SMF an average of 11.1 minutes late. The 7.0 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 20.5 minutes on the taxiways at DEN is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at SMF, UA2132 spends 5.6 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 about what any arrival at SMF spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
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 SMF. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 81,727 departures from DEN scheduled in the clock hour UA2132 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at SMF (172,477 flights), not just UA2132’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. UA2132 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 81,727 departures from DEN are scheduled in the 7 PM–8 PM hour over the period, against 963,099 across the whole day.
UA2132 is scheduled out of DEN at 7:15 PM, in the 7 PM–8 PM bank. Departures from DEN in that hour arrive on time 66.9% of the time against 76.0% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 9.2 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.
By day of week
Does UA2132 run worse on particular days?
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Saturday the least, a gap of 15.3 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 UA2132 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMF→EWR Sacramento to Newark | May 1, 2025 – July 31, 2026 | 200 | 69.9% |
| SNA→DEN Santa Ana to Denver | May 21, 2026 – July 31, 2026 | 72 | — |
| MKE→DEN Milwaukee to Denver | February 12, 2026 – March 4, 2026 | 21 | — |
| PHX→DEN Phoenix to Denver | December 2–17, 2025 | 16 | — |
| TYS→DEN Knoxville/Maryville to Denver | September 25, 2025 – October 25, 2025 | 31 | — |
| TUS→DEN Tucson to Denver | June 26, 2025 – July 31, 2025 | 36 | — |
| BOS→DEN Boston to Denver | November 1, 2024 – December 2, 2024 | 30 | — |
| SMF→IAD Sacramento to Washington | July 1, 2023 – August 18, 2024 | 119 | 71.7% |
| LAS→DEN Las Vegas to Denver | July 1, 2024 – August 18, 2024 | 49 | — |
| SEA→DEN Seattle to Denver | August 1, 2023 – September 4, 2023 | 35 | — |
| PDX→DEN Portland to Denver | July 1–31, 2023 | 31 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route UA2132 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.
56 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 1,085 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA2149 | United Airlines | 91.9% | 13 min early | 985 |
| UA1415 | United Airlines | 82.2% | 6 min early | 1,097 |
| UA1208 | United Airlines | 82.2% | 8 min early | 1,123 |
| UA2132 this flight | United Airlines | 73.2% | 2 min early | 1,085 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. UA2132 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 1,085 records of UA2132 operating DEN → SMF, 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