Carrier route record
F9DFW→MCO
Frontier Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Orlando
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 15%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on DFW 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 731 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 513 at 69.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DFW 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
74.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 715 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
63.6%
Every carrier on DFW to MCO, 4,911 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 MCO
Frontier flew 731 of the 4,911 flights on DFW to MCO, about 15% of it. Its 74.1% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 63.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.3% to American at 60.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 69.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 60.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,631 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 36 | 83.3% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 731 | 74.1% | 85 min | 1.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 513 | 69.1% | 70 min | 3.31% | C− |
| American Airlines | 3,631 | 60.4% | 69 min | 3.06% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 12 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am20 flights—
- 8am–11am101 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm196 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights76.4%
- 5pm–8pm138 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am201 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 80.2% of the time, against 68.1% for the evening window. That is 12 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 201 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DFW to MCO through the year
August is the worst month at 55.1% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 86.5%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%. 17 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 65% 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.
- 65%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
65% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 15,748 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 80.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 985 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 79.2% on time across 733 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 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 MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 731 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 74.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 715 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to MCO, every carrier
- Frontier on MCO to DFW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to MCO69.1%
- American Airlines on DFW to MCO60.4%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.