Carrier route record
F9RSW→CLE
Frontier Airlines · Fort Myers to Cleveland
- Flights
- 572
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 62%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on RSW 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 572 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on RSW to CLE runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 561 completed flights
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.5%
Every carrier on RSW to CLE, 925 flights
These figures cover 572 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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 RSW to CLE
Frontier flew 572 of the 925 flights on RSW to CLE, most of the route. Its 71.8% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 92.5% to Southwest at 40.0%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 348 | 92.5% | 78 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 572 | 71.8% | 94 min | 1.75% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 40.0% | 133 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 17 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–8am60 flights75.9%
- 8am–11am63 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm174 flights71.7%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm106 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am59 flights63.8%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.8% on time, against 81.0% for the 8am–11am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 174 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on RSW to CLE through the year
January is the weak month at 45.2% on time, against 94.1% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 106 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.2%. 24 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 55% of the 15,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
55% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 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 14,791 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 81.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
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. 11.2% 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.
The 1,025 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 78.0% on time across 572 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. 572 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 RSW to CLE
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 572 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 71.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 561 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RSW to CLE, every carrier
- Frontier on CLE to RSW, the return leg
- United Airlines on RSW to CLE92.5%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.