Carrier route record
F9MCO→CLE
Frontier Airlines · Orlando to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,189
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on MCO to CLE 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,189 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on MCO to CLE from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,172 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.9%
Every carrier on MCO to CLE, 2,066 flights
These figures cover 1,189 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 MCO to CLE
Frontier flew 1,189 of the 2,066 flights on MCO to CLE, most of the route. Its 74.3% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.5% to Spirit at 50.0%. Two 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 | 561 | 86.5% | 70 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 310 | 76.5% | 50 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 1,189 | 74.3% | 78 min | 1.09% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 50.0% | 90 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on MCO to CLE
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 30 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–8am207 flights85.8%
- 8am–11am139 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm211 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights74.9%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights64.0%
- 8pm–5am266 flights59.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 89.2% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 266 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on MCO to CLE through the year
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 88.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%. 19 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 59% of the 24,000 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.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
59% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 23,609 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
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. 10.8% 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 895 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 74.1% on time across 1,190 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,189 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking Frontier on MCO to CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.2% on time and December 64.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,172 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to CLE, every carrier
- Frontier on CLE to MCO, the return leg
- United Airlines on MCO to CLE86.5%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to CLE76.5%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.