Airline on-time record

F9

Frontier Airlines

Flights: 205,332
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Airports: 25
US rank: #11 by volume

Frontier Airlines sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 205,332 flights, of which Salt Lake City (SLC) flew 3,504 at 79.8% on time.

Salt Lake City (SLC) is the most reliable of the 25 airports covered here at 79.8% on time across 3,504 flights.

On time

73.2%

National average is 77.6%

Avg delay

84 min

Across delayed flights only

Cancelled

1.85%

National rate is 1.81%

Largest base

DEN

22,581 departures, 78.0% on time

These figures cover 205,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

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 79.8% of the time; New York (LGA) manages 60.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,383 flights means less than a ten-point one.

Frontier Airlines on-time performance by departure airport
Airport	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN · Denver	22,581	78.0%	67 min	0.73%	B+
ATL · Atlanta	19,734	64.5%	82 min	2.15%	D
MCO · Orlando	17,732	77.0%	76 min	1.47%	B
LAS · Las Vegas	12,272	77.7%	76 min	1.25%	B
DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth	9,912	74.7%	80 min	2.14%	C
PHL · Philadelphia	9,148	69.4%	85 min	2.57%	C
PHX · Phoenix	7,587	79.5%	84 min	1.17%	B
TPA · Tampa	6,558	76.3%	81 min	1.78%	B
CLE · Cleveland	6,349	75.4%	82 min	1.56%	B
LAX · Los Angeles	5,505	71.9%	82 min	1.69%	C
SJU · San Juan	4,867	71.6%	93 min	2.30%	C
IAH · Houston	4,776	70.1%	86 min	1.74%	C
MIA · Miami	4,274	75.1%	86 min	2.20%	B
RDU · Raleigh	4,205	73.1%	93 min	2.59%	C
ORD · Chicago	4,157	67.4%	105 min	3.44%	C−
SLC · Salt Lake City	3,504	79.8%	88 min	1.46%	B
SFO · San Francisco	3,407	65.2%	83 min	1.97%	C
BWI · Baltimore	3,297	68.3%	91 min	3.22%	C−
FLL · Fort Lauderdale	3,202	64.6%	95 min	3.00%	D
CVG · Cincinnati	3,183	79.7%	85 min	1.32%	B
CLT · Charlotte	3,069	69.8%	93 min	3.39%	C−
DTW · Detroit	2,821	72.1%	90 min	1.60%	C
JFK · New York	2,528	68.7%	84 min	2.02%	C
LGA · New York	2,383	60.6%	111 min	5.58%	D−
SAN · San Diego	2,265	72.3%	82 min	2.03%	C

New York (LGA) cancels 5.6% 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 73.2%. Route-level variation inside a single airline is routinely wider than the gap between two airlines nationally.

Busiest Frontier Airlines routes by flight volume
Route	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
DEN to LAS	1,557	76.3%	71 min	0.96%	B+
LAS to DEN	1,554	79.1%	90 min	0.97%	B+
PHL to MCO	1,529	70.2%	107 min	2.16%	C
MCO to PHL	1,528	71.4%	91 min	1.90%	C
DEN to PHX	1,432	77.4%	69 min	0.63%	B+
PHX to DEN	1,427	80.0%	88 min	0.63%	B+
MCO to SJU	1,242	73.6%	80 min	1.37%	C
SJU to MCO	1,240	78.9%	138 min	1.37%	B
CLE to MCO	1,190	74.1%	98 min	1.09%	C
MCO to CLE	1,189	74.3%	78 min	1.09%	C
ATL to MCO	1,181	65.6%	112 min	1.61%	C
MCO to ATL	1,180	67.7%	74 min	1.53%	C
DFW to DEN	1,126	77.7%	84 min	1.42%	B
DEN to DFW	1,125	75.2%	71 min	0.80%	B+
SLC to DEN	1,012	78.1%	73 min	0.89%	B+
ATL to PHL	1,010	62.4%	84 min	2.97%	D
DEN to SLC	1,010	81.7%	60 min	0.50%	B+
PHL to ATL	1,008	66.4%	71 min	2.78%	C
DEN to DCA	986	78.4%	76 min	0.81%	B+
DCA to DEN	984	78.4%	80 min	0.91%	B+
ATL to FLL	928	64.2%	80 min	2.37%	D
FLL to ATL	927	65.0%	85 min	2.80%	C
LGA to ATL	889	58.4%	106 min	5.74%	D−
ATL to LGA	888	51.8%	100 min	5.07%	F−
ATL to BWI	883	61.1%	70 min	1.93%	D

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 18 points, against 19 points between the best and worst airport. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am32,491 flights83.6%
8am–11am32,401 flights79.5%
11am–2pm33,766 flights75.9%
2pm–5pm34,374 flights70.6%
5pm–8pm31,530 flights65.2%
8pm–5am40,770 flights65.9%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.6% of the time, against 65.2% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 40,770 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier Airlines through the calendar

Frontier's year swings by 16 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 64.0% on time, 16 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. March was the busiest month here, with 20,119 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.3%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

What holds Frontier Airlines up

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 4.52 million delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
19%
Extreme weather
3%

51% 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 4.52 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 4,515,707 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 83.6% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

205,332 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 64.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 201,159 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

Frontier Airlines reliability questions

How often is Frontier Airlines delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.8% of the 205,332 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 79.8% on time across 3,504 flights. New York (LGA) is at the other end on 60.6%, a gap of 19 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 83.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.2%, 18 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 64.0% on time, compared with 79.6% in September. Across the year that is 16 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures