Carrier route record

F9TPA→SJU

Frontier Airlines · Tampa to San Juan

Flights: 342
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
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 SJU sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 342 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 614 at 78.9% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Frontier on TPA to SJU runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 334 completed flights

Avg delay

112 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.34%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

73.8%

Every carrier on TPA to SJU, 1,478 flights

These figures cover 342 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.7% 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 SJU

Frontier flew 342 of the 1,478 flights on TPA to SJU, about 23% of it. Its 73.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 81.8% to Southwest at 66.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 78.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 66.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 471 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to SJU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	51	81.8%	34 min	13.73%	B−
JetBlue Airways	614	78.9%	72 min	0.81%	B+
Frontier Airlines (this page)thin sample	342	73.4%	112 min	2.34%	C
Southwest Airlines	471	66.7%	50 min	0.42%	C+

The spread between JetBlue and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 16 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am30 flights—
8am–11am64 flights82.8%
11am–2pm76 flights70.7%
2pm–5pm16 flights—
5pm–8pm21 flights—
8pm–5am135 flights67.2%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.8% of the time, against 67.2% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 135 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Frontier on TPA to SJU through the year

Jul–Sep 202565 flights67.7%
Oct–Dec 202597 flights71.6%
Jan–Mar 202682 flights81.0%
Apr–Jun 202698 flights72.4%

Scale runs 60% to 85%. 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 73.4% on time across 342 flights.

Frontier on TPA to SJU did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 81.0% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 67.7%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 86 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, Friday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 17 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 55% of the 9,981 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%
Carrier
39%
National Airspace System
5%
Extreme weather
2%

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 9,981 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 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 9,981 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,844 of the 9,981 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 2.34% 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. 14.7% 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 1,237 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 74.0% on time across 344 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. 342 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 SJU

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 342 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 73.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 334 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