Airline on-time record
F9
Frontier Airlines
- Flights
- 213,022
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Airports
- 25
- US rank
- #11 by volume
Frontier Airlines sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 213,022 flights, of which Salt Lake City (SLC) flew 3,572 at 80.3% on time.
Salt Lake City (SLC) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 80.3% on time across 3,572 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.7%
National average is 77.3%
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Largest base
DEN
22,870 departures, 78.5% on time
These figures cover 213,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Airport by airport
Where Frontier Airlines runs well, and where it does not
The choice of airport is not cosmetic here. Salt Lake City (SLC) arrives on time 80.3% of the time; New York (LGA) manages 57.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,324 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airport | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEN · Denver | 22,870 | 78.5% | 68 min | 0.77% | B+ |
| ATL · Atlanta | 20,778 | 63.7% | 83 min | 2.42% | D |
| MCO · Orlando | 19,073 | 76.3% | 79 min | 1.68% | B |
| LAS · Las Vegas | 13,095 | 75.4% | 79 min | 1.46% | B |
| DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 10,947 | 74.1% | 81 min | 2.10% | C |
| PHL · Philadelphia | 9,389 | 67.7% | 85 min | 2.93% | C |
| PHX · Phoenix | 7,636 | 78.9% | 82 min | 1.18% | B |
| TPA · Tampa | 6,533 | 77.2% | 82 min | 1.96% | B |
| CLE · Cleveland | 6,400 | 75.5% | 84 min | 1.84% | B |
| LAX · Los Angeles | 5,699 | 73.6% | 78 min | 1.67% | C |
| IAH · Houston | 5,339 | 70.9% | 86 min | 2.38% | C |
| SJU · San Juan | 4,998 | 73.4% | 90 min | 2.34% | C |
| MIA · Miami | 4,358 | 73.7% | 85 min | 2.36% | C |
| RDU · Raleigh | 4,324 | 73.4% | 93 min | 2.52% | C |
| ORD · Chicago | 4,179 | 67.7% | 109 min | 3.76% | C− |
| FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 3,948 | 63.0% | 94 min | 3.47% | D− |
| BWI · Baltimore | 3,640 | 68.1% | 88 min | 4.04% | C− |
| SFO · San Francisco | 3,581 | 62.7% | 81 min | 2.18% | D |
| SLC · Salt Lake City | 3,572 | 80.3% | 86 min | 1.40% | B |
| CLT · Charlotte | 3,341 | 68.3% | 98 min | 4.49% | C− |
| DTW · Detroit | 3,308 | 70.6% | 92 min | 1.78% | C |
| CVG · Cincinnati | 3,096 | 78.1% | 84 min | 1.36% | B |
| LGA · New York | 2,324 | 57.3% | 112 min | 7.31% | D− |
| ONT · Ontario | 2,284 | 75.2% | 75 min | 1.31% | B |
| SAN · San Diego | 2,105 | 71.5% | 81 min | 1.95% | C |
New York (LGA) cancels 7.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest Frontier Airlines routes
These are the 25 routes Frontier Airlines flies most often, each against its network-wide 72.7%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEN to LAS | 1,626 | 75.8% | 78 min | 1.05% | B |
| PHL to MCO | 1,622 | 67.8% | 107 min | 2.59% | C |
| LAS to DEN | 1,620 | 76.5% | 96 min | 1.17% | B |
| MCO to PHL | 1,619 | 69.2% | 98 min | 2.16% | C |
| DEN to PHX | 1,499 | 77.0% | 70 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| PHX to DEN | 1,494 | 78.8% | 92 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| MCO to SJU | 1,350 | 76.6% | 78 min | 1.33% | B |
| SJU to MCO | 1,348 | 80.5% | 131 min | 1.34% | B |
| ATL to MCO | 1,270 | 64.8% | 117 min | 2.20% | D |
| MCO to ATL | 1,266 | 67.2% | 76 min | 2.21% | C |
| CLE to MCO | 1,256 | 76.0% | 105 min | 1.35% | B |
| MCO to CLE | 1,255 | 72.9% | 82 min | 1.35% | C |
| DFW to DEN | 1,201 | 77.3% | 88 min | 1.08% | B |
| DEN to DFW | 1,200 | 76.0% | 71 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| ATL to PHL | 1,085 | 61.6% | 94 min | 3.13% | D− |
| PHL to ATL | 1,082 | 66.7% | 71 min | 2.77% | C |
| DEN to SLC | 1,033 | 81.9% | 57 min | 0.29% | B+ |
| SLC to DEN | 1,033 | 79.3% | 79 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| ATL to FLL | 1,008 | 64.0% | 77 min | 2.48% | D |
| FLL to ATL | 1,007 | 63.7% | 91 min | 3.18% | D− |
| DCA to DEN | 983 | 78.1% | 81 min | 1.02% | B |
| DEN to DCA | 983 | 77.5% | 72 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| BWI to ATL | 973 | 66.8% | 71 min | 4.32% | C− |
| ATL to BWI | 973 | 61.6% | 73 min | 3.39% | D− |
| ATL to LGA | 950 | 46.2% | 107 min | 6.84% | F− |
Flight by flight
Busiest Frontier Airlines flight numbers
Frontier Airlines has 207 flight numbers that flew one route often enough to report a rate. These are the busiest; the full list is one click away.
Departure window
The best time of day to fly Frontier Airlines
Departure time matters more here than the choice of airport. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 23 points between the best and worst airport.
- 5am–8am33,251 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am33,731 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm34,605 flights75.5%
- 2pm–5pm36,013 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm32,655 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am42,767 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.1% on time, against 84.2% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 42,767 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier Airlines through the calendar
Frontier's year swings by 15 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.
July is the worst month at 64.9% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 79.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 20,482 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.3%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
What holds Frontier Airlines up
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 4.79 million delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4.79 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 4,791,497 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 84.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.05% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
213,022 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Booking Frontier Airlines
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 79.6% on time and July 64.9%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 208,222 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Frontier Airlines reliability questions
How often is Frontier Airlines delayed?
Roughly 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 27.3% of the 213,022 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airport does Frontier Airlines run best from?
Salt Lake City (SLC) leads at 80.3% on time across 3,572 flights. New York (LGA) is at the other end on 57.3%, a gap of 23 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Frontier Airlines?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.1%, 20 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 July delays on Frontier Airlines?
July is the weakest month at 64.9% on time, compared with 79.6% in September. Across the year that is 15 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
- Frontier Airlines at DEN — Denver78.5%
- Frontier Airlines at ATL — Atlanta63.7%
- Frontier Airlines at MCO — Orlando76.3%
- Frontier Airlines at LAS — Las Vegas75.4%
- Frontier Airlines at DFW — Dallas-Fort Worth74.1%
- DEN to LAS route record75.8%
- PHL to MCO route record67.8%
- LAS to DEN route record76.5%
- MCO to PHL route record69.2%
- US airline on-time rankings: 14 carriers, four measures
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.