Carrier route record
F9BUF→TPA
Frontier Airlines · Buffalo to Tampa
- Flights
- 127
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on BUF to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 127 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on BUF to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 124 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.57%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on BUF to TPA, 757 flights
These figures cover 127 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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 TPA
Frontier flew 127 of the 757 flights on BUF to TPA, about 17% of it. Its 74.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 79.4% to Frontier at 74.2%.
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 Airlines | 630 | 79.4% | 63 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 127 | 74.2% | 76 min | 1.57% | 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 18 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–11am6 flights—
- 11am–2pm19 flights—
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm46 flights62.2%
- 8pm–5am30 flights80.0%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 80.0% for the 8pm–5am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 46 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on BUF to TPA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202551 flights78.4%
- Oct–Dec 202532 flights70.0%
- Jan–Mar 202634 flights64.7%
- Apr–Jun 202610 flights—
Scale runs 55% 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 74.2% on time across 127 flights.
Frontier on BUF to TPA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 64.7%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 42 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 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.5%. 5 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 71% of the 2,418 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.
- 71%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Carrier
71% 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 2,418 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 71 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 2,418 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.57% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.79%.
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. 10.5% 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 1,053 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 80.0% on time across 127 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 127 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 TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 127 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 74.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 124 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.