Carrier route record

F9TPA→DFW

Frontier Airlines · Tampa to Dallas-Fort Worth

Flights: 234
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 8%
Carriers: 4

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

Frontier on TPA to DFW lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 234 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 DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 226 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.56%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.2%

Every carrier on TPA to DFW, 2,907 flights

These figures cover 234 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 TPA to DFW

Frontier flew 234 of the 2,907 flights on TPA to DFW, about 8% of it. Its 79.6% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 79.7% to Envoy at 61.8%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to DFW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	60	79.7%	68 min	1.67%	B
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	234	79.6%	72 min	2.56%	B
American Airlines	2,579	74.9%	92 min	3.61%	C−
Envoy Airthin sample	34	61.8%	100 min	0.00%	D+

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–8am28 flights—
8am–11am45 flights90.9%
11am–2pm54 flights82.7%
2pm–5pm25 flights—
5pm–8pm68 flights72.7%
8pm–5am14 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 72.7% for the evening 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 68 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on TPA to DFW through the year

Jul–Sep 202528 flights—
Oct–Dec 202554 flights75.0%
Jan–Mar 202672 flights82.6%
Apr–Jun 202680 flights84.6%

Scale runs 65% 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 79.6% on time across 234 flights.

Quarter by quarter Frontier on TPA to DFW held fairly steady: 75.0% in Oct–Dec 2025, 82.6% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 84.6% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.9%. 23 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. National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 3,327 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.

National Airspace System
55%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%
Carrier
17%

55% 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 1,815 minutes out of 3,327, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,327 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 90.9% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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

6.6% 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 929 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 83.4% on time across 233 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 234 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 DFW

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 234 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 79.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 226 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