Carrier route record
F9RDU→TPA
Frontier Airlines · Raleigh to Tampa
- Flights
- 260
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on RDU to TPA lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 260 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 651 at 84.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Frontier on RDU to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 251 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on RDU to TPA, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 260 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on RDU to TPA
Frontier flew 260 of the 1,294 flights on RDU to TPA, about 20% of it. Its 78.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.7% to Frontier at 78.5%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 651 | 84.7% | 72 min | 1.84% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 383 | 80.6% | 47 min | 1.57% | B |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 260 | 78.5% | 80 min | 3.46% | B− |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 84.7%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 16 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am39 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm19 flights—
- 2pm–5pm45 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm58 flights74.1%
- 8pm–5am99 flights80.2%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.6% of the time, against 68.9% for the afternoon window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 99 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on RDU to TPA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202521 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202559 flights70.7%
- Jan–Mar 202661 flights76.8%
- Apr–Jun 202664 flights85.7%
- Jul–Sep 202655 flights71.7%
Scale runs 60% 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 78.5% on time across 260 flights.
Frontier on RDU to TPA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 85.7% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 70.7%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 65 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.5%, a spread of 22 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on RDU to TPA runs when it is late
Frontier on RDU to TPA often beats the schedule: 117 of 251 completed flights, 47%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 54 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 16 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 22 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early117 flights46.6%
- Within 15 min80 flights31.9%
- 15–29 min late16 flights6.4%
- 30–59 min late16 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights4.0%
- 2+ hours late12 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 251 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
10 of 55 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 9 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on RDU to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 December 2025, 7 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 December 2025 | 7 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 May 2026 | 5 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 February 2026 | 5 hours 33 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 August 2026 | 3 hours 8 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 July 2026 | 2 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 77% of the 4,329 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 77%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%National Airspace System
- 7%Carrier
77% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,329 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 77 to one. The split is drawn from 4,329 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.46%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
8.8% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 587 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.
The return leg runs 78.2% on time across 260 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 260 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 TPA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.46% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 251 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to TPA, every carrier
- Frontier on TPA to RDU, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to TPA84.7%
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to TPA80.6%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.