Carrier route record
F9PHX→ATL
Frontier Airlines · Phoenix to Atlanta
- Flights
- 215
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on PHX to ATL sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 215 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 2,303 at 87.0% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.0% on time across 2,303 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 212 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.7%
Every carrier on PHX to ATL, 3,764 flights
These figures cover 215 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 PHX to ATL
Frontier flew 215 of the 3,764 flights on PHX to ATL, about 6% of it. Its 72.2% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 87.0% to Frontier at 72.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 614 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,303 | 87.0% | 97 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 632 | 77.6% | 40 min | 0.16% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 614 | 75.5% | 66 min | 0.49% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 215 | 72.2% | 74 min | 0.93% | C+ |
Delta leads American by 12 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 19 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am85 flights84.1%
- 8am–11am24 flights—
- 11am–2pm35 flights65.7%
- 2pm–5pm13 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am58 flights65.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.1% of the time, against 65.5% for the overnight window. That is 19 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 85 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on PHX to ATL through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights80.0%
- Oct–Dec 202544 flights76.2%
- Jan–Mar 202657 flights64.3%
- Apr–Jun 202684 flights72.6%
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 72.2% on time across 215 flights.
Frontier on PHX to ATL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 64.3%, a swing of 16 points on roughly 54 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.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.7%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 4,380 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 1,817 of the 4,380 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,380 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 84.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.47%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,587 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.8% on time across 214 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. 215 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 PHX to ATL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 215 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 72.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 212 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to ATL, every carrier
- Frontier on ATL to PHX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on PHX to ATL87.0%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to ATL77.6%
- American Airlines on PHX to ATL75.5%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.