Route reliability record
DEN→ANC
Denver to Anchorage
- Flights
- 734
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,405 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 734 DEN to ANC flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly DEN to ANC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.6% of the time and Friday flights 78.7%, against 74.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 730 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
78.1% on time across 559 flights
These figures cover 734 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
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to ANC
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 | 559 | 78.1% | 45 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 73.8% | 47 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 47 | 38.3% | 48 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to ANC
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 21 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–8am80 flights88.6%
- 8am–11am69 flights67.6%
- 11am–2pm111 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm54 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm372 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am48 flights68.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 67.6% for the morning window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 372 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
December is the weak month at 57.8% on time, against 95.5% 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 134 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.9%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 8,395 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
33% 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 2,751 minutes out of 8,395, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 8,395 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 82.5% on time across 735 flights, 8 points above 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. 734 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 ANC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 734 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 74.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 730 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to ANC questions
How often is DEN to ANC delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.2% of the 734 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
How reliable is DEN to ANC compared with the rest of the country?
74.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to ANC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.6% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 67.6%, 21 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 December delays on DEN to ANC?
December is the weakest month at 57.8% on time, compared with 95.5% in September. Across the year that is 38 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
- ANC to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on DEN to ANC78.1%
- Alaska Airlines on DEN to ANC73.8%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- SEA to ANC, a related route75.2%
- DEN to SLC, a related route77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record38.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DEN to ANC and ANC to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.