Carrier route record
F9LAS→ORD
Frontier Airlines · Las Vegas to Chicago
- Flights
- 184
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 3%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on LAS to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 184 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 2,330 at 79.3% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.3% on time across 2,330 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 175 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on LAS to ORD, 5,297 flights
These figures cover 184 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.9% 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 LAS to ORD
Frontier flew 184 of the 5,297 flights on LAS to ORD, about 3% of it. Its 68.6% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 83.6% to Southwest at 66.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 66.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 669 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 266 | 83.6% | 54 min | 1.50% | B |
| United Airlines | 2,330 | 79.3% | 71 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,848 | 76.2% | 99 min | 2.27% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 184 | 68.6% | 88 min | 4.35% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 669 | 66.6% | 58 min | 0.30% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 15 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am23 flights—
- 8am–11am5 flights—
- 11am–2pm13 flights—
- 2pm–5pm75 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am68 flights56.2%
Scale runs 50% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 71.4% for the 2pm–5pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 75 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on LAS to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202544 flights73.8%
- Oct–Dec 202539 flights72.2%
- Jan–Mar 202653 flights68.6%
- Apr–Jun 202648 flights60.9%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. 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 68.6% on time across 184 flights.
Frontier on LAS to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 73.8% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 60.9%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 46 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, Sunday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 56.8%. 25 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 47% of the 4,858 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
47% 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 4,858 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 4,858 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.35%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 14.9% 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.
At 1,514 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 58.3% on time across 186 flights, 10 points below 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 184 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 LAS to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.35% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 175 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to ORD, every carrier
- Frontier on ORD to LAS, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on LAS to ORD83.6%
- United Airlines on LAS to ORD79.3%
- American Airlines on LAS to ORD76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on LAS to ORD66.6%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.