Carrier route record
F9CLT→DFW
Frontier Airlines · Charlotte to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 242
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on CLT to DFW 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 242 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on CLT to DFW 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 233 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on CLT to DFW, 3,881 flights
These figures cover 242 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 CLT to DFW
Frontier flew 242 of the 3,881 flights on CLT to DFW, about 6% of it. Its 74.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 87.2% to Frontier at 74.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 87.2% | 104 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 3,600 | 78.6% | 69 min | 2.53% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 242 | 74.2% | 82 min | 3.31% | 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 29 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–8am22 flights—
- 8am–11am39 flights94.7%
- 11am–2pm44 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm89 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am29 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.7% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 89 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on CLT to DFW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202538 flights68.4%
- Oct–Dec 202556 flights80.0%
- Jan–Mar 202662 flights78.6%
- Apr–Jun 202686 flights70.2%
Scale runs 60% 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 242 flights.
Frontier on CLT to DFW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 68.4%, a swing of 12 points on roughly 61 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 86.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.9%. 19 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 50% of the 4,924 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
50% 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 4,924 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 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 4,924 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 1,699 of the 4,924 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 9.4% 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 935 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 81.2% on time across 243 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 242 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 DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 233 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to DFW, every carrier
- Frontier on DFW to CLT, the return leg
- American Airlines on CLT to DFW78.6%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- 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.