Carrier route record
F9BUF→ATL
Frontier Airlines · Buffalo to Atlanta
- Flights
- 257
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on BUF to ATL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 257 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on BUF to ATL runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 249 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.5%
Every carrier on BUF to ATL, 1,507 flights
These figures cover 257 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.9% 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 BUF to ATL
Frontier flew 257 of the 1,507 flights on BUF to ATL, about 17% of it. Its 68.7% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 100.0% to Frontier at 68.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,249 | 84.0% | 60 min | 2.00% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 257 | 68.7% | 82 min | 2.72% | C |
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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am10 flights—
- 11am–2pm176 flights72.5%
- 2pm–5pm54 flights62.3%
- 5pm–8pm15 flights—
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 72.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 62.3%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 176 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on BUF to ATL through the year
- Jul–Sep 202558 flights76.4%
- Oct–Dec 202557 flights70.9%
- Jan–Mar 202653 flights57.7%
- Apr–Jun 202689 flights69.0%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. 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 68.7% on time across 257 flights.
Frontier on BUF to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 76.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 57.7%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 64 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 71.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.5%. 11 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 78% of the 6,421 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.
- 78%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 6%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
78% 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 6,421 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 78 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 6,421 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.72%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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. 14.9% 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 712 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 runs 68.5% on time across 257 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 257 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 BUF to ATL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 257 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 68.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 249 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.