Carrier route record
F9PHL→DFW
Frontier Airlines · Philadelphia to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 265
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on PHL to DFW 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 265 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on PHL to DFW runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 83 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 254 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.77%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.3%
Every carrier on PHL to DFW, 3,428 flights
These figures cover 265 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 PHL to DFW
Frontier flew 265 of the 3,428 flights on PHL to DFW, about 8% of it. Its 69.3% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to Frontier at 69.3%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 3,162 | 77.9% | 92 min | 3.67% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 265 | 69.3% | 85 min | 3.77% | C− |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am51 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am80 flights73.3%
- 11am–2pm36 flights78.8%
- 2pm–5pm53 flights57.7%
- 5pm–8pm27 flights—
- 8pm–5am18 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.0% of the time, against 57.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 80 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on PHL to DFW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202556 flights67.9%
- Oct–Dec 202576 flights66.2%
- Jan–Mar 202654 flights66.7%
- Apr–Jun 202679 flights75.0%
Scale runs 60% 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 69.3% on time across 265 flights.
Quarter by quarter Frontier on PHL to DFW held fairly steady: 67.9% in Jul–Sep 2025, 66.2% in Oct–Dec 2025, 66.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 75.0% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 74.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.8%. 16 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 46% of the 6,616 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
46% 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 6,616 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 6,616 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 2,460 of the 6,616 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.77%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 11.4% 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 1,303 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 68.2% on time across 265 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. 265 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 DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.77% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 254 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to DFW, every carrier
- Frontier on DFW to PHL, the return leg
- American Airlines on PHL to DFW77.9%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.