Carrier route record
F9RDU→DFW
Frontier Airlines · Raleigh to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 207
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on RDU to DFW lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 207 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on RDU to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 202 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on RDU to DFW, 2,278 flights
These figures cover 207 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on RDU to DFW
Frontier flew 207 of the 2,278 flights on RDU to DFW, about 9% of it. Its 76.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.1% to Spirit at 60.6%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,012 | 78.1% | 88 min | 2.93% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 76.9% | 80 min | 22.22% | B− |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 207 | 76.7% | 69 min | 1.93% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 7 | 71.4% | 26 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 60.6% | 63 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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 207 flights.
- 5am–8am13 flights—
- 8am–11am49 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm80 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm28 flights—
- 5pm–8pm21 flights—
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 83.5% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 75.0%. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 80 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on RDU to DFW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202541 flights69.2%
- Oct–Dec 202551 flights78.4%
- Jan–Mar 202645 flights81.4%
- Apr–Jun 202670 flights76.8%
Scale runs 60% 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 76.7% on time across 207 flights.
Frontier on RDU to DFW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 69.2%, a swing of 12 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, Friday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.8%. 15 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 3,229 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 1,226 of the 3,229 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,229 reported delay minutes.
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,121 minutes out of 3,229, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.48%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.4% 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.
The 1,061 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.4% on time across 210 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 207 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 DFW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 207 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 76.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 202 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to DFW, every carrier
- Frontier on DFW to RDU, the return leg
- American Airlines on RDU to DFW78.1%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Late aircraft, weather, or the airline: what actually causes US flight delays
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.