Carrier route record
F9LIT→DEN
Frontier Airlines · Little Rock to Denver
- Flights
- 116
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on LIT to DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 116 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 365 at 81.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on LIT to DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 115 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on LIT to DEN, 1,570 flights
These figures cover 116 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 LIT to DEN
Frontier flew 116 of the 1,570 flights on LIT to DEN, about 7% of it. Its 74.8% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.4% to Frontier at 74.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 81.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 75.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,048 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 85.4% | 58 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 81.9% | 81 min | 1.10% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,048 | 75.7% | 90 min | 0.67% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 116 | 74.8% | 102 min | 0.86% | C+ |
Southwest leads SkyWest by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm22 flights—
- 5pm–8pm50 flights61.2%
- 8pm–5am44 flights81.8%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 81.8% for the 8pm–5am 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 50 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on LIT to DEN through the year
- Jul–Sep 202532 flights61.3%
- Oct–Dec 202530 flights73.3%
- Jan–Mar 202620 flights—
- Apr–Jun 202634 flights79.4%
Scale runs 55% 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 74.8% on time across 116 flights.
Frontier on LIT to DEN did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 79.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 61.3%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 39 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.
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 2,944 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.
- 48%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
37% 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 2,944 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 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 2,944 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,410 of the 2,944 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
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. 11.3% 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 771 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 75.7% on time across 116 flights, within about 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. 116 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 LIT to DEN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 116 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 74.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 115 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LIT to DEN, every carrier
- Frontier on DEN to LIT, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on LIT to DEN81.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on LIT to DEN75.7%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) 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.