Carrier route record

F9CMH→MCO

Frontier Airlines · Columbus to Orlando

Flights: 229
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 11%
Carriers: 4

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

Frontier on CMH to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 229 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 1,524 at 80.0% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on CMH to MCO runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 223 completed flights

Avg delay

103 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.62%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.9%

Every carrier on CMH to MCO, 2,168 flights

These figures cover 229 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% 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 CMH to MCO

Frontier flew 229 of the 2,168 flights on CMH to MCO, about 11% of it. Its 72.6% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.1% to Spirit at 72.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 80.0% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 72.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 387 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on CMH to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	82.1%	71 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,524	80.0%	65 min	1.05%	B
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	229	72.6%	103 min	2.62%	C
Spirit Airlines	387	72.2%	85 min	2.33%	C

Southwest leads Spirit by 8 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 25 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am30 flights86.7%
11am–2pm57 flights82.5%
2pm–5pm47 flights61.4%
5pm–8pm33 flights66.7%
8pm–5am62 flights67.8%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 61.4% for the afternoon window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 62 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on CMH to MCO through the year

Jul–Sep 202546 flights77.8%
Oct–Dec 202542 flights82.9%
Jan–Mar 202668 flights66.7%
Apr–Jun 202673 flights69.0%

Scale runs 60% 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 72.6% on time across 229 flights.

Frontier on CMH to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 82.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 66.7%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 57 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 Sunday the weakest at 60.0%. 26 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 67% of the 6,267 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
67%
Carrier
17%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
1%

67% 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 6,267 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 61 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 6,267 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 86.7% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.62%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 13.9% 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 802 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 78.2% on time across 229 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 229 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 CMH to MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 229 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 72.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 223 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