Carrier route record
F9MCO→PHL
Frontier Airlines · Orlando to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,528
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- 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 PHL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,528 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,582 at 75.3% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.3% on time across 2,582 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,499 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on MCO to PHL, 5,332 flights
These figures cover 1,528 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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 MCO to PHL
Frontier flew 1,528 of the 5,332 flights on MCO to PHL, about 29% of it. Its 71.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.3% to Spirit at 65.0%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 75.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 65.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 579 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,582 | 75.3% | 93 min | 2.17% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 1,528 | 71.4% | 91 min | 1.90% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 643 | 68.1% | 58 min | 0.78% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 579 | 65.0% | 71 min | 5.35% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after 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 33 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am226 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am272 flights80.3%
- 11am–2pm304 flights69.0%
- 2pm–5pm253 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm244 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am229 flights57.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.6% on time, against 90.5% for the 5am–8am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 304 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on MCO to PHL through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 84.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.4%. 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 54% of the 39,000 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.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
54% 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 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 38,833 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.90% 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. 12.9% 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.
The 862 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 70.2% on time across 1,529 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,528 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 PHL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 84.7% on time and October 62.4%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,499 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to PHL, every carrier
- Frontier on PHL to MCO, the return leg
- American Airlines on MCO to PHL75.3%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to PHL68.1%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to PHL65.0%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.