Carrier route record
F9RDU→ATL
Frontier Airlines · Raleigh to Atlanta
- Flights
- 571
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 12%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on RDU to ATL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 571 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on RDU to ATL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 555 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
87.6%
Every carrier on RDU to ATL, 4,618 flights
These figures cover 571 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 RDU to ATL
Frontier flew 571 of the 4,618 flights on RDU to ATL, about 12% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 14 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 87.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 90.2% to Frontier at 73.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 247 | 90.2% | 68 min | 0.81% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,800 | 89.5% | 86 min | 1.37% | A |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 571 | 73.9% | 95 min | 2.80% | C |
Flight by flight
Frontier flight numbers on RDU to ATL
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 18 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–8am298 flights81.4%
- 8am–11am10 flights—
- 11am–2pm90 flights66.7%
- 2pm–5pm67 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm99 flights65.3%
- 8pm–5am7 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 81.4% of the time, against 63.6% for the afternoon window. That is 18 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 298 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on RDU to ATL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.2%. 22 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 45% of the 14,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
45% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 13,709 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 81.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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. 10.8% 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 356 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 60.2% on time across 571 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 571 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 RDU to ATL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.80% 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. 555 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to ATL, every carrier
- Frontier on ATL to RDU, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to ATL90.2%
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to ATL89.5%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) 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.