Carrier route record

F9TPA→IAH

Frontier Airlines · Tampa to Houston

Flights: 137
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 8%
Carriers: 3

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

Frontier on TPA to IAH sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 137 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on TPA to IAH runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 135 completed flights

Avg delay

101 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.46%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.7%

Every carrier on TPA to IAH, 1,650 flights

These figures cover 137 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 IAH

Frontier flew 137 of the 1,650 flights on TPA to IAH, about 8% of it. Its 71.1% on time is 14 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.3% to Frontier at 71.1%. 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 IAH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,362	87.3%	76 min	0.29%	A+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	151	73.2%	99 min	1.32%	C
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	137	71.1%	101 min	1.46%	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 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–8am12 flights—
8am–11am15 flights—
11am–2pm22 flights—
2pm–5pm54 flights81.5%
5pm–8pm34 flights63.6%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 81.5% for the 2pm–5pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 54 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on TPA to IAH through the year

Jul–Sep 202556 flights73.2%
Oct–Dec 202531 flights66.7%
Jan–Mar 202632 flights71.0%
Apr–Jun 202618 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 80%. 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 71.1% on time across 137 flights.

Quarter by quarter Frontier on TPA to IAH held fairly steady: 73.2% in Jul–Sep 2025, 66.7% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 71.0% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

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 3,945 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
55%
National Airspace System
22%
Carrier
20%
Extreme weather
3%

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 3,945 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 3,945 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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. 10.4% 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 787 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 runs 70.9% on time across 137 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. 137 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 IAH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 137 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 71.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 135 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