Carrier route record
F9DEN→MCO
Frontier Airlines · Denver to Orlando
- Flights
- 850
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- 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 MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 850 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,762 at 82.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DEN to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 837 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on DEN to MCO, 4,583 flights
These figures cover 850 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 MCO
Frontier flew 850 of the 4,583 flights on DEN to MCO, about 19% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.2% to Southwest at 73.7%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,971 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,762 | 82.2% | 76 min | 0.40% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 850 | 74.7% | 67 min | 1.06% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,971 | 73.7% | 50 min | 0.66% | C+ |
United leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on DEN to MCO
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 16 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am62 flights86.9%
- 8am–11am276 flights73.2%
- 11am–2pm55 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm38 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm104 flights78.4%
- 8pm–5am315 flights71.0%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.9% of the time, against 71.0% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 315 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DEN to MCO through the year
July is the worst month at 56.4% on time, 31 points below February, the best at 87.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 99 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.6%. 14 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. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 14,000 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.
- 56%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
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 8,044 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,292 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,547 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.0% on time across 848 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 850 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 MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 850 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 74.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 837 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to MCO, every carrier
- Frontier on MCO to DEN, the return leg
- United Airlines on DEN to MCO82.2%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MCO73.7%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.