Carrier route record
F9IAD→DFW
Frontier Airlines · Washington to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 175
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on IAD to DFW 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 77.3%. The late ones land about 2.7 hours behind schedule. That rests on 175 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 928 at 80.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Frontier on IAD to DFW runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 168 completed flights
Avg delay
164 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on IAD to DFW, 1,961 flights
These figures cover 175 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 17.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on IAD to DFW
Frontier flew 175 of the 1,961 flights on IAD to DFW, about 9% of it. Its 70.8% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.0% to Republic at 66.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 928 | 80.0% | 81 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 849 | 74.4% | 114 min | 2.47% | C |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 175 | 70.8% | 164 min | 3.43% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 66.7% | 69 min | 0.00% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 80.0%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 39 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am41 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm36 flights68.6%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm49 flights53.1%
- 8pm–5am23 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.1% on time, against 92.1% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 49 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on IAD to DFW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202521 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202522 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202633 flights87.1%
- Apr–Jun 202658 flights73.2%
- Jul–Sep 202641 flights45.0%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. 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 70.8% on time across 175 flights.
Frontier on IAD to DFW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 87.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 45.0%, a swing of 42 points on roughly 58 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 71.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.8%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on IAD to DFW runs when it is late
Frontier on IAD to DFW often beats the schedule: 70 of 168 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When Frontier on IAD to DFW is late it tends to be very late: 29 of its 49 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 14 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early70 flights41.7%
- Within 15 min49 flights29.2%
- 15–29 min late9 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late11 flights6.5%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights8.9%
- 2+ hours late14 flights8.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 168 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 51 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 27% of them. In the other direction, 12 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DFW.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on IAD to DFW
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 May 2026, 23 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across May, June and September, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 May 2026 | 23 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 20 hours 24 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 May 2026 | 10 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 September 2025 | 9 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 June 2026 | 8 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 8,036 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 16%Extreme weather
- 13%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 16% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.6 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 8,036 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,036 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 3.43%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
17.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,172 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.6% on time across 175 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. 175 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 IAD to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.43% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.7 hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 168 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to DFW, every carrier
- Frontier on DFW to IAD, the return leg
- United Airlines on IAD to DFW80.0%
- American Airlines on IAD to DFW74.4%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.