Carrier route record
F9DTW→MCO
Frontier Airlines · Detroit to Orlando
- Flights
- 427
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 12%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on DTW to MCO lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 427 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Spirit Airlines, flew 956 at 78.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on DTW 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 418 completed flights
Avg delay
103 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on DTW to MCO, 3,680 flights
These figures cover 427 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 DTW to MCO
Frontier flew 427 of the 3,680 flights on DTW to MCO, about 12% of it. Its 76.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.4% to Southwest at 69.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 956 | 78.4% | 65 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 427 | 76.1% | 103 min | 1.41% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,170 | 74.6% | 71 min | 0.92% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 127 | 69.0% | 56 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Spirit tops the table at 78.4%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on DTW 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 13 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am45 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm206 flights79.7%
- 2pm–5pm61 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm58 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am54 flights71.2%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 79.7% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 67.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 206 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on DTW to MCO through the year
- Jul–Sep 202574 flights68.5%
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights73.4%
- Jan–Mar 2026156 flights75.5%
- Apr–Jun 2026118 flights83.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. 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 76.1% on time across 427 flights.
Frontier on DTW to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.5% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 68.5%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 107 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 69.2%. 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 10,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
53% 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 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 10,325 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.70%.
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. 9.6% 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 957 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 82.7% on time across 428 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 427 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 DTW to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 427 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 418 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to MCO, every carrier
- Frontier on MCO to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to MCO78.4%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to MCO74.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DTW to MCO69.0%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.