Carrier route record

F9IAH→TPA

Frontier Airlines · Houston to Tampa

Flights: 137
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 8%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.

Frontier on IAH to TPA 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 about 2.1 hours behind schedule. That rests on 137 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on IAH to TPA runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 67 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 134 completed flights

Avg delay

129 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.19%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.6%

Every carrier on IAH to TPA, 1,643 flights

These figures cover 137 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.4% 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 IAH to TPA

Frontier flew 137 of the 1,643 flights on IAH to TPA, about 8% of it. Its 70.9% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.6% to Frontier at 70.9%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on IAH to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,363	83.6%	66 min	0.37%	B+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	143	72.7%	58 min	0.00%	C+
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	137	70.9%	129 min	2.19%	C

Departure window

When Frontier runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 137 flights.

5am–8am2 flights—
8am–11am9 flights—
11am–2pm33 flights77.4%
2pm–5pm16 flights—
5pm–8pm7 flights—
8pm–5am70 flights72.5%

Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 77.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 5 points.

Across the year

Frontier on IAH to TPA through the year

Jul–Sep 202556 flights71.4%
Oct–Dec 202531 flights—
Jan–Mar 202632 flights77.4%
Apr–Jun 202618 flights—

Scale runs 65% 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 70.9% on time across 137 flights.

Split by quarter, Frontier on IAH to TPA logged 56 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 31 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 32 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 18 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 70.9% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why Frontier runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 67% of the 5,012 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
67%
Carrier
27%
National Airspace System
5%

67% 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 5,012 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 67 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 5,012 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.19% 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. 13.4% 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 787 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 runs 71.1% on time across 137 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 137 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 IAH to TPA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 137 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 70.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 134 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures