Carrier route record
F9PHL→CLT
Frontier Airlines · Philadelphia to Charlotte
- Flights
- 572
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on PHL to CLT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 572 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Frontier on PHL to CLT runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 550 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.2%
Every carrier on PHL to CLT, 3,535 flights
These figures cover 572 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on PHL to CLT
Frontier flew 572 of the 3,535 flights on PHL to CLT, about 16% of it. Its 69.8% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Frontier at 69.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 2,876 | 82.2% | 82 min | 2.68% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 80 | 80.0% | 68 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 572 | 69.8% | 74 min | 3.50% | C− |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on PHL to CLT
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am159 flights83.3%
- 8am–11am94 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm79 flights66.2%
- 2pm–5pm140 flights55.1%
- 5pm–8pm59 flights66.0%
- 8pm–5am41 flights62.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 83.3% of the time, against 55.1% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 159 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on PHL to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 48.9% on time, 31 points below May, the best at 79.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 57 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.5%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on PHL to CLT runs when it is late
Frontier on PHL to CLT often beats the schedule: 192 of 550 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 166 late arrivals split 38 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 79 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early192 flights34.9%
- Within 15 min192 flights34.9%
- 15–29 min late38 flights6.9%
- 30–59 min late49 flights8.9%
- 1–2 hours late48 flights8.7%
- 2+ hours late31 flights5.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 550 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 151 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 17 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 32 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at CLT.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on PHL to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 January 2026, 4 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across January, December, September and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 January 2026 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 14 December 2025 | 4 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 September 2025 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 September 2025 | 3 hours 54 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 August 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 12,265 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,217 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.50%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
14.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 449 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.9% on time across 574 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 572 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 PHL to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.50% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 550 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to CLT, every carrier
- Frontier on CLT to PHL, the return leg
- American Airlines on PHL to CLT82.2%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.