Carrier performance at one airport
F9→PHL
Frontier Airlines at Philadelphia International
- Departures
- 9,389
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #9 of 10
Frontier Airlines at Philadelphia draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 9,389 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 6,525 at 82.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Frontier Airlines runs 8 points behind the 75.3% weighted average across all carriers at PHL. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
67.7%
9,091 completed departures
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.93%
At PHL, this carrier only
Rank here
#9
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at PHL
These figures cover 9,389 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at PHL, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 67.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 768 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 6,525 | 82.2% | 91 min | 2.70% | B |
| Republic Airways | 6,782 | 82.2% | 78 min | 3.18% | B− |
| United Airlines | 4,503 | 76.6% | 94 min | 1.29% | B |
| American Airlines | 46,621 | 76.1% | 79 min | 2.47% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,658 | 74.2% | 69 min | 5.67% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 18,372 | 73.6% | 88 min | 5.53% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,781 | 71.5% | 79 min | 3.65% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,129 | 71.4% | 63 min | 1.46% | C |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 9,389 | 67.7% | 85 min | 2.93% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 768 | 67.3% | 60 min | 1.56% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.7% 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
Where Frontier Airlines flies from PHL
Frontier Airlines operates 25 routes out of PHL with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHL to MCO · Orlando | 1,622 | 67.8% | 107 min | 2.59% | C |
| PHL to ATL · Atlanta | 1,082 | 66.7% | 71 min | 2.77% | C |
| PHL to SJU · San Juan | 915 | 55.6% | 77 min | 3.17% | D− |
| PHL to TPA · Tampa | 799 | 69.6% | 90 min | 2.13% | C |
| PHL to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 659 | 72.4% | 82 min | 2.28% | C |
| PHL to RDU · Raleigh | 611 | 79.3% | 72 min | 3.27% | B− |
| PHL to CLT · Charlotte | 572 | 69.8% | 74 min | 3.50% | C− |
| PHL to MIA · Miami | 369 | 63.3% | 81 min | 2.98% | D |
| PHL to DEN · Denverthin sample | 301 | 65.3% | 120 min | 3.65% | C− |
| PHL to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worththin sample | 290 | 66.5% | 85 min | 3.45% | C− |
| PHL to RSW · Fort Myersthin sample | 283 | 68.5% | 68 min | 4.59% | C− |
| PHL to JAX · Jacksonvillethin sample | 276 | 65.0% | 71 min | 3.62% | C− |
| PHL to PBI · West Palm Beachthin sample | 259 | 62.9% | 69 min | 4.25% | D− |
| PHL to ORD · Chicagothin sample | 196 | 56.2% | 118 min | 5.10% | D− |
| PHL to MSY · New Orleansthin sample | 158 | 71.2% | 79 min | 2.53% | C |
| PHL to MYR · Myrtle Beachthin sample | 139 | 71.7% | 85 min | 0.72% | C+ |
| PHL to LAS · Las Vegasthin sample | 134 | 61.9% | 94 min | 4.48% | D− |
| PHL to BNA · Nashvillethin sample | 123 | 65.3% | 82 min | 4.07% | C− |
| PHL to DTW · Detroitthin sample | 92 | 69.7% | 63 min | 3.26% | C− |
| PHL to SRQ · Sarasotathin sample | 87 | 81.7% | 91 min | 5.75% | B− |
| PHL to IAH · Houstonthin sample | 72 | 67.6% | 64 min | 1.39% | C |
| PHL to PIT · Pittsburghthin sample | 70 | 71.0% | 105 min | 1.43% | C |
| PHL to CHS · Charlestonthin sample | 57 | 75.4% | 77 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PHL to MDW · Chicagothin sample | 56 | 82.1% | 65 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PHL to LAX · Los Angelesthin sample | 44 | 75.0% | 68 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Frontier Airlines flight numbers from PHL
12 Frontier Airlines flight numbers leaving PHL flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2,038 flights78.4%
- 8am–11am1,509 flights74.1%
- 11am–2pm1,658 flights67.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,279 flights62.3%
- 5pm–8pm1,910 flights59.1%
- 8pm–5am995 flights59.2%
Scale runs 50% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.1% on time, against 78.4% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 2,038 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 55.4% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 80.7%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 918 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 251,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 250,866 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.93%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
13.9% 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.
The sample behind these figures is 9,389 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 9,091 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Frontier Airlines at PHL
How often is Frontier Airlines at PHL delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.3% of the 9,389 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Frontier Airlines at PHL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.2% on time across 6,525 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 67.3%, a gap of 15 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 at PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 78.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.1%, 19 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 at PHL?
July is the weakest month at 55.4% on time, compared with 80.7% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
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.