Carrier route record

F9TPA→CVG

Frontier Airlines · Tampa to Cincinnati

Flights: 369
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 51%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.

Frontier on TPA to CVG sits in the middle of the pack with a B+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 369 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Frontier on TPA to CVG from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 367 completed flights

Avg delay

94 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.27%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.9%

Every carrier on TPA to CVG, 728 flights

These figures cover 369 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 TPA to CVG

Frontier flew 369 of the 728 flights on TPA to CVG, most of the route. Its 75.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 75.7% to Delta at 74.1%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to CVG
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlines (this page)	369	75.7%	94 min	0.27%	B+
Delta Air Linesthin sample	359	74.1%	99 min	1.11%	C

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 26 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–8am43 flights90.7%
8am–11am106 flights85.8%
11am–2pm26 flights—
2pm–5pm12 flights—
5pm–8pm39 flights71.8%
8pm–5am143 flights64.5%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.5% on time, against 90.7% for the 5am–8am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 143 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on TPA to CVG through the year

Jul–Sep 202578 flights76.9%
Oct–Dec 202581 flights72.8%
Jan–Mar 202699 flights67.0%
Apr–Jun 2026111 flights84.7%

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 75.7% on time across 369 flights.

Frontier on TPA to CVG did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 67.0%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 92 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%. 19 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 73% of the 8,332 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
73%
Carrier
21%
National Airspace System
7%

73% 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 8,332 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 73 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 8,332 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 90.7% on time here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

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. 11.7% 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 773 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 81.4% on time across 367 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. 369 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 TPA to CVG

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 369 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 75.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 367 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures