Carrier route record
F9CLE→TPA
Frontier Airlines · Cleveland to Tampa
- Flights
- 857
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 85%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on CLE to TPA 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 857 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 CLE 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 844 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.40%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.6%
Every carrier on CLE to TPA, 1,003 flights
These figures cover 857 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 CLE to TPA
Frontier flew 857 of the 1,003 flights on CLE to TPA, most of the route. Its 77.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 93.1% to Southwest at 73.3%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 131 | 93.1% | 62 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 857 | 77.6% | 78 min | 1.40% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 73.3% | 36 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on CLE to TPA
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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am197 flights83.9%
- 8am–11am102 flights80.0%
- 11am–2pm105 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm181 flights84.0%
- 5pm–8pm230 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am42 flights73.2%
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 84.0% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 68.6%. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 230 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on CLE to TPA through the year
January is the weak month at 64.3% on time, against 94.9% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 105 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.7%. 16 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 53% of the 15,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
53% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 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 14,666 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
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. 9.7% 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 927 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 78.6% on time across 859 flights, within about 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. 857 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 CLE to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 857 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 844 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to TPA, every carrier
- Frontier on TPA to CLE, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLE to TPA93.1%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.