Carrier route record
F9TPA→RDU
Frontier Airlines · Tampa to Raleigh
- Flights
- 260
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Frontier Airlines.
Frontier on TPA to RDU lands a B−, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 260 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 651 at 86.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Frontier on TPA to RDU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 252 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.6%
Every carrier on TPA to RDU, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 260 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Frontier against every carrier on TPA to RDU
Frontier flew 260 of the 1,294 flights on TPA to RDU, about 20% of it. Its 78.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.2% to Southwest at 76.1%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 76.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 383 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 651 | 86.2% | 79 min | 2.00% | A |
| Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample | 260 | 78.2% | 85 min | 3.08% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 383 | 76.1% | 57 min | 0.78% | B+ |
Delta leads Southwest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 22 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am35 flights82.9%
- 8am–11am45 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm53 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm79 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm48 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 79 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Frontier on TPA to RDU through the year
- Jul–Sep 202521 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202559 flights75.9%
- Jan–Mar 202661 flights75.9%
- Apr–Jun 202664 flights84.1%
- Jul–Sep 202655 flights71.2%
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 78.2% on time across 260 flights.
Frontier on TPA to RDU did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 71.2%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 65 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 90.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.8%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Frontier on TPA to RDU runs when it is late
Frontier on TPA to RDU often beats the schedule: 88 of 252 completed flights, 35%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 55 late arrivals split 17 under half an hour, 13 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 25 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early88 flights34.9%
- Within 15 min109 flights43.3%
- 15–29 min late17 flights6.7%
- 30–59 min late13 flights5.2%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late11 flights4.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 252 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 47 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 5 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 13 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at RDU.
The worst days
Worst days for Frontier on TPA to RDU
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 December 2025, 7 hours 36 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across December, May, November, February and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 December 2025 | 7 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 10 May 2026 | 6 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 November 2025 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 February 2026 | 4 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 30 July 2026 | 3 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Frontier runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 4,653 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,653 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 50 to one. The split is drawn from 4,653 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.08%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 587 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.
The return leg runs 78.5% on time across 260 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. 260 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 RDU
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.08% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 252 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to RDU, every carrier
- Frontier on RDU to TPA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to RDU86.2%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to RDU76.1%
- Frontier Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.