Route reliability record
ANC→DEN
Anchorage to Denver
- Flights
- 735
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,405 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 735 ANC to DEN flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly ANC to DEN: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.8%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 727 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
83.5% on time across 560 flights
These figures cover 735 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ANC to DEN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 86.7% | 44 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 560 | 83.5% | 71 min | 1.25% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 59.6% | 62 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ANC to DEN
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am18 flights—
- 8am–11am59 flights73.7%
- 11am–2pm51 flights66.7%
- 2pm–5pm79 flights86.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am528 flights84.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 66.7% on time against 86.1% for 2pm–5pm. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 528 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
January is the weak month at 69.4% on time, against 95.3% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. June was the busiest month here, with 135 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 79.6%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 8,345 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 3,805 of the 8,345 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,345 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.2% 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.
At 2,405 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.8% on time across 734 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. 735 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 735 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 82.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 727 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ANC to DEN questions
How often is ANC to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 735 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ANC to DEN compared with the rest of the country?
82.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ANC to DEN?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 66.7%, 19 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are January delays on ANC to DEN?
January is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 95.3% in September. Across the year that is 26 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to ANC — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on ANC to DEN86.7%
- United Airlines on ANC to DEN83.5%
- ANC to SEA, a related route85.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- ANC to FAI, a related route89.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record86.7%
- United Airlines on-time record83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record59.6%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ANC to DEN and DEN to ANC are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ANC to DEN’s on-time badge on your site
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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.