Carrier route record
F9DEN→DCA
Frontier Airlines · Denver to Washington
- 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 DEN to DCA lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four 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 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 971 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.6%
Every carrier on DEN to DCA, 1,347 flights
These figures cover 983 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on DEN to DCA
Frontier flew 983 of the 1,347 flights on DEN to DCA, most of the route. Its 77.5% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.6% to Frontier at 77.5%. 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 | 88.6% | 59 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 983 | 77.5% | 72 min | 0.81% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on DEN to DCA
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am313 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm315 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm355 flights66.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 66.0% for the afternoon window. That is 27 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 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DEN to DCA through the year
August is the worst month at 62.2% on time, 24 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 88.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on DEN to DCA runs when it is late
Frontier on DEN to DCA often beats the schedule: 396 of 971 completed flights, 41%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 218 late arrivals split 63 under half an hour, 72 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 83 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early396 flights40.8%
- Within 15 min357 flights36.8%
- 15–29 min late63 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late72 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late55 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late28 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 971 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
51 of 233 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 36 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on DEN to DCA
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 carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 February 2026 | 17 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 6 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 5 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 January 2026 | 5 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 April 2026 | 5 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 50% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
50% 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 7,892 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 15,740 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.81%, below the national 1.89% 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
8.5% 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 78.1% 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 DEN to DCA
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 77.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 971 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 DCA88.6%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.