Carrier route record
F9AUS→MCO
Frontier Airlines · Austin to Orlando
- Flights
- 171
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on AUS to MCO lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 171 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 547 at 81.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on AUS to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 166 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on AUS to MCO, 2,792 flights
These figures cover 171 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on AUS to MCO
Frontier flew 171 of the 2,792 flights on AUS to MCO, about 6% of it. Its 77.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.1% to Spirit at 62.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,885 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 547 | 81.1% | 61 min | 1.46% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 171 | 77.1% | 71 min | 2.92% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,885 | 71.1% | 57 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 189 | 62.9% | 99 min | 5.82% | D− |
Delta leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am46 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm35 flights88.6%
- 2pm–5pm10 flights—
- 5pm–8pm67 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am13 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.6% of the time, against 73.4% for the evening window. That is 15 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 67 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on AUS to MCO through the year
- Jul–Sep 202542 flights48.8%
- Oct–Dec 202541 flights79.5%
- Jan–Mar 202645 flights83.7%
- Apr–Jun 202643 flights95.3%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.1% on time across 171 flights.
Frontier on AUS to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 95.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 48.8%, a swing of 47 points on roughly 43 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 60.0%. 27 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 2,703 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
44% 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 2,703 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 2,703 reported delay minutes.
38% 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 1,022 minutes out of 2,703, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.92%, against 1.81% 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.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% 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.
The 994 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.0% on time across 171 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. 171 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 Frontier on AUS to MCO
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.92% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to MCO, every carrier
- Frontier on MCO to AUS, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to MCO81.1%
- Southwest Airlines on AUS to MCO71.1%
- Spirit Airlines on AUS to MCO62.9%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.