Route profile
DEN→ANC
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Denver to Anchorage, 2,405 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 78% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 2,084 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
DEN → ANC arrives on time 78.5% of the time; the return trip, ANC → DEN, arrives on time 84.8% of the time, a 6.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DEN → ANC spends 25.1 minutes on the ground on a 2,405-mile trip: 20.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DEN and 4.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at ANC.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where DEN to ANC differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
DEN to ANC struggles most at 9 AM: 69.5% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 10.8 points behind the 80.3% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 14.8 points.
DEN to ANC is at its best against routes of similar length for flights scheduled at 7 PM: 78.7% arrive on time, 10.7 points ahead of the 68.0% those routes manage at that hour. Against all other routes the gap is 10.9 points.
DEN to ANC holds up on Sundays better than routes of similar length do: 82.4% on time to their 76.1%, a 6.3 points lead. Against all other routes the gap is 7.6 points.
DEN to ANC against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 9 AM departures | 69.5% | routes of similar length | 80.3% | −10.8 pts | 141 here, 73,375 there |
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 78.7% | routes of similar length | 68.0% | +10.7 pts | 954 here, 42,479 there |
| Weekday: Sunday | 82.4% | routes of similar length | 76.1% | +6.3 pts | 296 here, 159,088 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 2,405 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
37 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 2,084 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ANC after arriving from DEN.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 42% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 4.8% | Low risk |
| 120 min | 2.8% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 0.24% of the time and diverts 0.72% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 2,064 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 37 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 2,084 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DEN → ANC flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.4% of the time, against 57.8% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 26.6 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 88.6% on time from 142 flights
- 8 AM: 80.7% on time from 163 flights
- 9 AM: 69.5% on time from 145 flights
- 10 AM: too few flights to score
- 11 AM: 83.9% on time from 363 flights
- 12 PM to 6 PM: too few flights to score
- 7 PM: 78.7% on time from 957 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DEN → ANC runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 DEN → ANC. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,591 | 80.7% | 0.19% | -4 min | 4.2% |
| Alaska Airlines | 415 | 77.4% | 0.48% | -4 min | 6.6% |
United Airlines flew 79.3% of the 2,006 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 3.3 percentage points more often than Alaska Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| UA280 United Airlines | 7:00 PM | 1,019 | 80.9% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Friday the least, a gap of 7.7 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: too few flights to score (93)
- August 2023: too few flights to score (93)
- September 2023: too few flights to score (39)
- October 2023: too few flights to score (31)
- November 2023: too few flights to score (30)
- December 2023: too few flights to score (31)
- January 2024: too few flights to score (31)
- February 2024: too few flights to score (29)
- March 2024: too few flights to score (31)
- April 2024: too few flights to score (30)
- May 2024: too few flights to score (56)
- June 2024: too few flights to score (93)
- July 2024: too few flights to score (97)
- August 2024: too few flights to score (96)
- September 2024: too few flights to score (49)
- October 2024: too few flights to score (31)
- November 2024: too few flights to score (30)
- December 2024: too few flights to score (31)
- January 2025: too few flights to score (31)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (28)
- March 2025: too few flights to score (31)
- April 2025: too few flights to score (30)
- May 2025: too few flights to score (58)
- June 2025: too few flights to score (93)
- July 2025: too few flights to score (97)
- August 2025: too few flights to score (96)
- September 2025: too few flights to score (44)
- October 2025: too few flights to score (31)
- November 2025: too few flights to score (30)
- December 2025: too few flights to score (45)
- January 2026: too few flights to score (50)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (53)
- March 2026: too few flights to score (35)
- April 2026: too few flights to score (30)
- May 2026: too few flights to score (89)
- June 2026: 74.4% from 134 flights
- July 2026: 77.1% from 158 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.4% against 79.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 2,084 DEN → ANC flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed