Carrier route record

F9CID→DEN

Frontier Airlines · Cedar Rapids to Denver

Flights: 169
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 15%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.

Frontier on CID to DEN lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 169 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

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

On time

76.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 167 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.18%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.5%

Every carrier on CID to DEN, 1,103 flights

These figures cover 169 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% 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 CID to DEN

Frontier flew 169 of the 1,103 flights on CID to DEN, about 15% of it. Its 76.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 79.2% to SkyWest at 72.3%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CID to DEN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	727	79.2%	95 min	1.51%	B
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	169	76.6%	71 min	1.18%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	207	72.3%	95 min	0.48%	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 17 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–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm49 flights85.4%
5pm–8pm33 flights68.8%
8pm–5am87 flights74.7%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 85.4% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 68.8%. 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 87 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on CID to DEN through the year

Jul–Sep 202552 flights63.5%
Oct–Dec 202548 flights78.7%
Jan–Mar 202632 flights80.6%
Apr–Jun 202637 flights89.2%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. 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 76.6% on time across 169 flights.

Frontier on CID to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 63.5%, a swing of 26 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, Sunday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.5%. 15 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 59% of the 2,748 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
59%
National Airspace System
29%
Carrier
12%
Extreme weather
1%

59% 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 2,748 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 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 2,748 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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. 13.2% 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 692 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 80.2% on time across 169 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 169 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 CID to DEN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 169 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 76.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 167 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