Carrier route record

F9DEN→CMH

Frontier Airlines · Denver to Columbus

Flights: 117
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 3

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

Frontier on DEN to CMH lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 117 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 729 at 81.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DEN to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

81.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 116 completed flights

Avg delay

100 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.85%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.7%

Every carrier on DEN to CMH, 1,767 flights

These figures cover 117 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 DEN to CMH

Frontier flew 117 of the 1,767 flights on DEN to CMH, about 7% of it. Its 81.0% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.4% to Southwest at 64.7%.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.4% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 64.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 921 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to CMH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	729	81.4%	55 min	0.69%	B+
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	117	81.0%	100 min	0.85%	B+
Southwest Airlines	921	64.7%	53 min	0.76%	D+

The spread between United and Southwest is 17 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 17 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 117 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am1 flights—
11am–2pm52 flights82.7%
2pm–5pm64 flights79.4%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 82.7% on time. The full set of windows spans 3 points.

Across the year

Frontier on DEN to CMH through the year

Jul–Sep 202531 flights76.7%
Oct–Dec 202530 flights86.7%
Jan–Mar 202620 flights—
Apr–Jun 202636 flights83.3%

Scale runs 70% 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 81.0% on time across 117 flights.

Frontier on DEN to CMH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 76.7%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 39 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.

Delay causes

Why Frontier runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 2,190 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.

Carrier
56%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, 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 1,234 of the 2,190 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,190 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.85%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.9% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 1,154 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 69.0% on time across 117 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 117 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 DEN to CMH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 117 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 81.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 116 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