Carrier route record

F9BUF→MCO

Frontier Airlines · Buffalo to Orlando

Flights: 289
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 16%
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 MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 289 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 535 at 77.0% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on BUF to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 284 completed flights

Avg delay

106 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.38%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

76.2%

Every carrier on BUF to MCO, 1,773 flights

These figures cover 289 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% 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 MCO

Frontier flew 289 of the 1,773 flights on BUF to MCO, about 16% of it. Its 75.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 77.0% to Frontier at 75.7%.

The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on BUF to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
JetBlue Airways	535	77.0%	75 min	1.87%	B
Southwest Airlines	949	75.9%	52 min	0.63%	B+
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	289	75.7%	106 min	1.38%	B

No carrier stands out. JetBlue tops the table at 77.0%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 14 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am38 flights75.7%
11am–2pm69 flights85.3%
2pm–5pm19 flights—
5pm–8pm55 flights75.9%
8pm–5am108 flights71.7%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 85.3% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 71.7%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 108 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on BUF to MCO through the year

Jul–Sep 202569 flights75.0%
Oct–Dec 202561 flights71.7%
Jan–Mar 202677 flights75.7%
Apr–Jun 202682 flights79.3%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. 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 75.7% on time across 289 flights.

Quarter by quarter Frontier on BUF to MCO held fairly steady: 75.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 71.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 75.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 79.3% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.1%. 21 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 45% of the 7,322 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
45%
Carrier
42%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
1%

45% 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 7,322 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 7,322 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,102 of the 7,322 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.

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. 12.3% 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 1,011 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 76.1% on time across 288 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. 289 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 MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 289 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 75.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 284 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures