Carrier route record

F9PHX→CLE

Frontier Airlines · Phoenix to Cleveland

Flights: 319
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 33%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.

Frontier on PHX to CLE 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 319 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on PHX to CLE runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 311 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.88%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.7%

Every carrier on PHX to CLE, 957 flights

These figures cover 319 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 CLE

Frontier flew 319 of the 957 flights on PHX to CLE, about 33% of it. Its 72.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.3% to Southwest at 67.8%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHX to CLE
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlinesthin sample	267	79.3%	77 min	0.37%	B+
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	319	72.7%	83 min	1.88%	C
Southwest Airlines	371	67.8%	44 min	0.00%	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 27 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–8am11 flights—
8am–11am78 flights61.6%
11am–2pm81 flights88.8%
2pm–5pm26 flights—
5pm–8pm110 flights68.8%
8pm–5am13 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.8% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 61.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 110 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on PHX to CLE through the year

Jul–Sep 202578 flights76.9%
Oct–Dec 202575 flights75.3%
Jan–Mar 202675 flights52.8%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights83.0%

Scale runs 45% to 90%. 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 72.7% on time across 319 flights.

Frontier on PHX to CLE did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.0% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 52.8%, a swing of 30 points on roughly 80 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 94.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.4%. 34 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. Carrier accounts for 50% of the 7,079 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.

Carrier
50%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
5%

The largest share of delay minutes, 50%, 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 3,518 of the 7,079 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,079 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.88% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.63%.

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. 12.2% 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.

At 1,737 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 79.0% on time across 318 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 319 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 CLE

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 319 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 72.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 311 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures