Carrier route record
F9PHX→MCO
Frontier Airlines · Phoenix to Orlando
- Flights
- 208
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 11%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on PHX to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 208 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 857 at 76.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Frontier on PHX to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 205 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on PHX to MCO, 1,857 flights
These figures cover 208 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on PHX to MCO
Frontier flew 208 of the 1,857 flights on PHX to MCO, about 11% of it. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.5% to American at 71.7%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 857 | 76.5% | 44 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 208 | 74.6% | 68 min | 1.44% | C |
| American Airlines | 792 | 71.7% | 57 min | 0.63% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 76.5%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Departure window
When Frontier runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 208 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 74.6% on time across 208 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 208 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on PHX to MCO through the year
- Oct–Dec 202545 flights77.8%
- Jan–Mar 202655 flights75.0%
- Apr–Jun 202660 flights80.0%
- Jul–Sep 202648 flights64.6%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 74.6% on time across 208 flights.
Frontier on PHX to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 80.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 64.6%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 52 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, Sunday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on PHX to MCO runs when it is late
The 52 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early40 flights19.5%
- Within 15 min113 flights55.1%
- 15–29 min late25 flights12.2%
- 30–59 min late16 flights7.8%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late4 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 205 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 54 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. In the other direction, 13 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 MCO.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on PHX to MCO
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 April 2026, 10 hours 58 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across April, August, June and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 April 2026 | 10 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 August 2026 | 9 hours 14 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 23 June 2026 | 7 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 17 July 2026 | 2 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 July 2026 | 1 hour 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 55% of the 3,523 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 15% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 3,523 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,921 of the 3,523 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,849 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 82.9% on time across 207 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 208 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 MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 208 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 74.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 205 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to MCO, every carrier
- Frontier on MCO to PHX, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to MCO76.5%
- American Airlines on PHX to MCO71.7%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.