Carrier route record
F9DEN→DCA
Frontier Airlines · Denver to Washington
- Flights
- 986
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on DEN to DCA lands a B+, about a point 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 986 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DEN to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 973 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.81%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.2%
Every carrier on DEN to DCA, 1,351 flights
These figures cover 986 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 DEN to DCA
Frontier flew 986 of the 1,351 flights on DEN to DCA, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.7% to Frontier at 78.4%.
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 Airlines | 365 | 88.7% | 61 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 986 | 78.4% | 76 min | 0.81% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on DEN to DCA
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–8am314 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm316 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm356 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.6% of the time, against 65.5% for the afternoon 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 356 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DEN to DCA through the year
July is the worst month at 67.1% on time, 19 points below October, the best at 85.7%. 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 89.3% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 74.3%. 15 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. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 16,000 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.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
47% 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 7,461 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 15,888 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.81%, 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
8.9% 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 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. 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 runs 78.4% on time across 984 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. 986 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 DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 986 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 78.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 973 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to DCA, every carrier
- Frontier on DCA to DEN, the return leg
- United Airlines on DEN to DCA88.7%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.