I flew MCO-DFW Friday night, and generally it was a very smooth flight... departed MCO on time, and even arrived about 15 minutes early. On landing, we taxied waaaaaay out to a remote tarmac area; that's never a good sign.

At first, the captain announced that we were early and the gate was still occupied. After about 15 minutes, he said the plane at the gate had to deplane and board, so he estimated about 30 minutes. At the one-hour mark, they offered water and cookies, and shortly after the captain said there was a maintenance issue with the plane at the gate, it was almost fixed and we should be on the way soon. At the 2-hour mark, the captain came back on and said he wasn't getting any information and wasn't really sure what was going on. At the 2:45 mark, he powered up and we taxied to the gate. We landed in DWF around 10:45 PM CT, and got to the gate a little after 1:30 AM.

Surprisingly, most of the passengers were pretty calm. They were upset, of course, but there weren't any fights, no one insisting that we go somewhere immediately, none of the usual stuff you see on social media videos. That was reassuring.

The downside was that, aside from a cursory "Sorry about that, folks" from the captain, there wasn't jack in the way of an apology, followup, anything at all from F9. They're basically like... meh, whatever, it's a risk of flying for cheap. That's pretty crappy, IMHO.

That, in my opinion, is not your captain's fault, however, if the plane tying up the gate was another Frontier plane with a maintenance problem, which seem to be happening more and more frequently, then it is Frontier's fault for the cause of your delay. If you fly out of MCO a lot, you know that occupied gates which ground crew can't get cleared is a big problem there also. Ultimately the failure to efficiently assign gates, replacement gates and ground crew is the airport operations fault. MCO is administrated by a politically appointed, in my opinion, incompetent cronys, and that is why I think MCO is in such chaos.

I don't know if I totally agree with that. Problem to me seems to be airports like MCO are just straining under capacity constraints and financial arrangements. Frontier pays for X gates and they don't get X+1 unless there is an emergency. Maybe there wasn't an open gate that night as it's possible that late that most gates were occupied with aircraft not flying out until the morning. But this getting there early or on time and then sitting is way too common now at a lot of airports with many airlines.

Willy702,
I understand your point about the limited number of Frontier gates, but as to MCO constraints and finances, all these airport and port authorities have been receiving significant additional funding since the 9/11 attacks and as you know there are extra airport fees attached to every transaction that has anything to do with airports. I asked this question of one of the "biggies" at MCO - Where is all that money going? No one can say where an awful lot of the money is being spent. TSA at MCO is as if they only started doing it last month, and they have had 22 years to tune it. As soon as I see them prepare to bring out the K9, I know the lines will get worse because TSA is not skilled in handling K9 operations. They may have their credentials, but they are inept in practice. If you have lived in Central Florida for the past decade, you may have read of the nonsense that occurs with some of the high level administrators of MCO. Highly compensated and highly incompetent. Having said that , Frontier does have its problems, but I need one of their routes, and I have learned to play Frontier's game, so there is not much else for me to do .

Holding for a gate really doesn't have anything to do with the operator of the airport. If Frontier paid to lease additional gates or wanted to pay to use a common use gate, the airport authority would provide them with one if at all possible. Leasing is how airports earn a lot of their revenue.

From what I have gleaned over the years, the jetway and gate operations are a combined effort of airline staff and airport staff. As with most big companies , a lot of the truth of why things happen will never be known. But I know when I am riding towards MCO to depart, I always see open gates around Frontier and Spirit. Do they have agreements between airlines to help if space is needed? I don't know.

Just for clarification, the flight was MCO->DFW, so the tarmac wait was at DWF rather than MCO.

MCO is my home airport, so I fly out of there all the time. I've had to wait for a gate a handful of times, but never more than maybe 10-15 minutes... never 2.75 hours like at DFW. I know the principles are all the same, and most of the airports work the same way, but don't want MCO to take more blame than they already deserve. LOL

Also, I'm not entirely convinced the issue was all about holding for a gate. The captain did announce several times that the gate was almost free, should be free in 10-15 minutes, etc., but his final announcement was that he was getting no information and really had no idea what was actually happening. I think that's MUCH more of a F9 breakdown than an actual gate operation problem. That's just my opinion, though.

Do DOT Tarmac Delay rules apply to aircraft that have landed as opposed to those waiting for departure? If so this one came close to the limit.

The problem was in DFW.

What the CA stated happens. Things break and estimated repair times can be long. ULCC’s also often don’t have maintenance staff. They call out contract maintenance which can take time. In DFW it’s likely they use another airline’s maintenance crews but if that airline is having issues guess who gets attended to first? I also suspect other gate options were available but would have required an extra payment by Frontier. Only when they were bumping up against the 3 hour limit did they spend the money as it’s far cheaper than the DOT fine.

"DFW Airport's Board of Directors is composed of 12 members, 11 of whom are appointed by the city councils of the Airport's owner cities. Seven represent the City of Dallas and four represent the City of Fort Worth, in accordance with each city's ownership interest in the Airport". - DFW official website.
Doesn't really matter which airport . They all get, in essence, unlimited money since 2001, and most of the people being placed onto these airport authorities are there for political reasons and not because they are experienced in aviation.
I took a few minutes to read the airport history. Frontier was one of the first airlines to work out of DFW. I never been there.