Carrier route record
F9FLL→CLE
Frontier Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland
- Flights
- 425
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on FLL to CLE sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 425 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on FLL to CLE runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 416 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on FLL to CLE, 1,164 flights
These figures cover 425 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.0% 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 FLL to CLE
Frontier flew 425 of the 1,164 flights on FLL to CLE, about 37% of it. Its 70.2% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 91.4% to Spirit at 67.0%. 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 Airlines | 506 | 91.4% | 99 min | 0.99% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 425 | 70.2% | 95 min | 2.12% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 233 | 67.0% | 64 min | 3.86% | C− |
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 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am50 flights68.0%
- 11am–2pm129 flights77.8%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm77 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am150 flights69.4%
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 77.8% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 67.6%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 150 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on FLL to CLE through the year
- Jul–Sep 202537 flights78.4%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights70.9%
- Jan–Mar 2026155 flights60.7%
- Apr–Jun 2026146 flights77.6%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. 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 70.2% on time across 425 flights.
Frontier on FLL to CLE did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 78.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 60.7%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 106 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.1%. 27 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 63% of the 12,000 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.
- 63%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
63% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 39 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 11,721 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 13.0% 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 1,062 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 75.4% on time across 425 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. 425 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 FLL to CLE
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 425 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 70.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to CLE, every carrier
- Frontier on CLE to FLL, the return leg
- United Airlines on FLL to CLE91.4%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to CLE67.0%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) 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.