Carrier route record
F9DCA→DEN
Frontier Airlines · Washington to Denver
- Flights
- 983
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on DCA to DEN lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 983 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DCA 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
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 970 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.2%
Every carrier on DCA to DEN, 1,347 flights
These figures cover 983 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on DCA to DEN
Frontier flew 983 of the 1,347 flights on DCA to DEN, most of the route. Its 78.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.4% to Frontier at 78.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 78.4% | 87 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 983 | 78.1% | 81 min | 1.02% | B |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on DCA to DEN
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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.
- 5am–8am189 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am169 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm66 flights95.5%
- 2pm–5pm253 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm306 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 95.5% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.7%. 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 306 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DCA to DEN through the year
August is the worst month at 67.9% on time, 21 points below October, the best at 89.2%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 85 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on DCA to DEN runs when it is late
Frontier on DCA to DEN often beats the schedule: 329 of 970 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 212 late arrivals split 74 under half an hour, 68 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 70 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early329 flights33.9%
- Within 15 min429 flights44.2%
- 15–29 min late74 flights7.6%
- 30–59 min late68 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights3.7%
- 2+ hours late34 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 970 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
28 of 148 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. In the other direction, 92 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DEN.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on DCA to DEN
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 February 2026, 17 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across February, August, June and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 February 2026 | 17 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 August 2026 | 16 hours 8 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 12 June 2026 | 16 hours 4 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 21 June 2026 | 15 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 July 2026 | 12 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
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 7,467 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 17,067 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,476 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.
The return leg runs 77.5% on time across 983 flights, within half 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. 983 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 DCA to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 983 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 970 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to DEN, every carrier
- Frontier on DEN to DCA, the return leg
- United Airlines on DCA to DEN78.4%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.