Carrier route record
F9CLT→IAH
Frontier Airlines · Charlotte to Houston
- Flights
- 216
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on CLT to IAH sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 216 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 394 at 85.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on CLT to IAH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 205 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.09%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on CLT to IAH, 2,348 flights
These figures cover 216 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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 IAH
Frontier flew 216 of the 2,348 flights on CLT to IAH, about 9% of it. Its 75.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.8% to SkyWest at 74.3%. One 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 85.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 76.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,623 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 394 | 85.8% | 95 min | 1.78% | A |
| American Airlines | 1,623 | 76.1% | 73 min | 1.60% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 216 | 75.6% | 62 min | 5.09% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 115 | 74.3% | 67 min | 1.74% | 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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am53 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm29 flights—
- 2pm–5pm73 flights64.2%
- 5pm–8pm56 flights77.4%
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 80.8% of the time, against 64.2% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 73 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on CLT to IAH through the year
- Jul–Sep 202535 flights79.4%
- Oct–Dec 202549 flights81.2%
- Jan–Mar 202660 flights81.8%
- Apr–Jun 202672 flights64.7%
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 75.6% on time across 216 flights.
Frontier on CLT to IAH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.8% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 64.7%, a swing of 17 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.5%. 10 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 57% of the 3,122 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
57% 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 3,122 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 3,122 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 80.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.09%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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. 9.3% 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 912 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 67.5% on time across 217 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 216 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 IAH
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.09% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; 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. 205 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to IAH, every carrier
- Frontier on IAH to CLT, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLT to IAH85.8%
- American Airlines on CLT to IAH76.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on CLT to IAH74.3%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) 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.