Carrier route record
F9DFW→DTW
Frontier Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Detroit
- Flights
- 227
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on DFW to DTW lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 227 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,404 at 83.3% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DFW to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 223 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DFW to DTW, 3,506 flights
These figures cover 227 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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 DFW to DTW
Frontier flew 227 of the 3,506 flights on DFW to DTW, about 6% of it. Its 79.8% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 94.7% to American at 67.5%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,621 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 19 | 94.7% | 51 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,404 | 83.3% | 100 min | 1.57% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 227 | 79.8% | 69 min | 1.76% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 78.5% | 88 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,621 | 67.5% | 70 min | 2.53% | C |
The spread between Delta and American is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 20 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am64 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am44 flights81.4%
- 11am–2pm14 flights—
- 2pm–5pm103 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 72.3% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 103 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DFW to DTW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202555 flights94.4%
- Oct–Dec 202560 flights78.3%
- Jan–Mar 202637 flights78.4%
- Apr–Jun 202675 flights70.8%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. 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 79.8% on time across 227 flights.
Frontier on DFW to DTW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 94.4% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 70.8%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 57 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.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 93.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.8%. 19 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 3,104 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,104 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,104 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.1% 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 986 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 59.8% on time across 227 flights, 20 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 20 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 227 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 DFW to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 227 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 223 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to DTW, every carrier
- Frontier on DTW to DFW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DFW to DTW83.3%
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to DTW78.5%
- American Airlines on DFW to DTW67.5%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.