Carrier route record
F9CLT→DEN
Frontier Airlines · Charlotte to Denver
- Flights
- 215
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on CLT to DEN 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 215 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 675 at 85.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on CLT to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 212 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.40%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on CLT to DEN, 2,816 flights
These figures cover 215 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on CLT to DEN
Frontier flew 215 of the 2,816 flights on CLT to DEN, about 8% of it. Its 76.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.1% to Southwest at 65.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 85.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,717 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 675 | 85.1% | 79 min | 1.19% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 84.2% | 214 min | 5.00% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 215 | 76.9% | 56 min | 1.40% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,717 | 75.1% | 61 min | 1.22% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 189 | 65.6% | 52 min | 1.59% | C |
United leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 215 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Frontier's CLT to DEN record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 76.9% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Frontier on CLT to DEN through the year
- Jul–Sep 202545 flights65.9%
- Oct–Dec 202558 flights72.4%
- Jan–Mar 202652 flights82.4%
- Apr–Jun 202660 flights84.7%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 76.9% on time across 215 flights.
Frontier on CLT to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.9%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 54 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, Monday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.2%. 18 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. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 2,745 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
41% 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 2,745 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 2,745 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,211 minutes out of 2,745, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.40% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,337 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 86.7% on time across 214 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 215 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 CLT to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 215 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 76.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 212 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to DEN, every carrier
- Frontier on DEN to CLT, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLT to DEN85.1%
- American Airlines on CLT to DEN75.1%
- Southwest Airlines on CLT to DEN65.6%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.