Route reliability record
DEN→ANC
Denver to Anchorage
- Flights
- 852
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 852 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 Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.2%, against 74.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 849 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
77.6% on time across 615 flights
These figures cover 852 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 88.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 615 | 77.6% | 46 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 109 | 38.5% | 60 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.
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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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am183 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am7 flights—
- 11am–2pm111 flights84.7%
- 2pm–5pm105 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm379 flights66.2%
- 8pm–5am67 flights67.2%
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 89.4% of the time, against 66.2% for the evening window. That is 23 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 379 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to ANC by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DEN to ANC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.2%, a wide gap of 23.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm84.7%
- 2–5pm68.6%
- 5–8pm66.2%
- 8pm–5am67.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 158 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 11,000 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 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% 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
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, 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 81.5% on time across 852 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 852 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. 852 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 74.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 849 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 25.9% of the 852 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is DEN to ANC compared with the rest of the country?
74.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.2%, 23 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
- Alaska Airlines on DEN to ANC88.0%
- United Airlines on DEN to ANC77.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to ANC38.5%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- SEA to ANC, a related route76.5%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record88.0%
- United Airlines on-time record77.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record38.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.