Carrier route record
F9TPA→PHL
Frontier Airlines · Tampa to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 783
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- 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 PHL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 783 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on TPA to PHL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 766 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.3%
Every carrier on TPA to PHL, 2,614 flights
These figures cover 783 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.4% 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 PHL
Frontier flew 783 of the 2,614 flights on TPA to PHL, about 30% of it. Its 73.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.6% to Frontier at 73.1%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 76.6% | 54 min | 1.91% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,674 | 74.6% | 96 min | 2.09% | C |
| Frontier Airlines (this page) | 783 | 73.1% | 87 min | 2.17% | 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 29 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–8am44 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am193 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm148 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm138 flights61.3%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights64.4%
- 8pm–5am199 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 61.3% for the afternoon window. That is 29 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 199 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on TPA to PHL through the year
July is the worst month at 44.9% on time, 42 points below September, the best at 87.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 102 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 61.7%. 26 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 66% of the 18,000 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.
- 66%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 15%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
66% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 66 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 18,011 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.17% 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. 13.4% 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 920 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 69.8% on time across 784 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 783 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 PHL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 783 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 73.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 766 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to PHL, every carrier
- Frontier on PHL to TPA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to PHL76.6%
- American Airlines on TPA to PHL74.6%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.