Carrier route record
UADEN→ANC
United Airlines · Denver to Anchorage
- Flights
- 559
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 76%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on DEN to ANC lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 559 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on DEN to ANC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 557 completed flights
Avg delay
45 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on DEN to ANC, 734 flights
These figures cover 559 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
United against every carrier on DEN to ANC
United flew 559 of the 734 flights on DEN to ANC, most of the route. Its 78.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.1% to Southwest at 38.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 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
United flight numbers on DEN to ANC
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 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–8am31 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm111 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm54 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm322 flights74.8%
- 8pm–5am41 flights73.2%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 73.2% for the overnight window. That is 17 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 322 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on DEN to ANC through the year
December is the weak month at 57.8% on time, against 97.3% 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 71 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 83.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 5,435 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 31%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 5,435 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 5,435 reported delay minutes.
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 1,791 minutes out of 5,435, against a national NAS share of 21%.
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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% 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 83.5% on time across 560 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 559 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on DEN to ANC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 559 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 557 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to ANC, every carrier
- United on ANC to DEN, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on DEN to ANC73.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.