Carrier route record
NKATL→DFW
Spirit Airlines · Atlanta to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 302
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 5%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on ATL to DFW lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 302 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 2,633 at 77.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on ATL to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 292 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.3%
Every carrier on ATL to DFW, 6,698 flights
These figures cover 302 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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
Spirit against every carrier on ATL to DFW
Spirit flew 302 of the 6,698 flights on ATL to DFW, about 5% of it. Its 78.1% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 78.8% to Frontier at 60.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 60.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 873 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 84 | 78.8% | 65 min | 2.38% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 302 | 78.1% | 86 min | 2.98% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,633 | 77.2% | 104 min | 3.15% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,791 | 75.4% | 57 min | 2.51% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 64.3% | 276 min | 6.67% | D− |
| Frontier Airlines | 873 | 60.4% | 79 min | 2.29% | D |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Departure window
When Spirit runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am212 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am24 flights—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm43 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 84.2% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 212 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on ATL to DFW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202595 flights89.4%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights76.1%
- Jan–Mar 202691 flights71.1%
- Apr–Jun 202624 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. 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 78.1% on time across 302 flights.
Spirit on ATL to DFW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 89.4% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 71.1%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 101 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 5,522 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.
- 60%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 3,334 of the 5,522 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,522 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.98%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.3% 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 731 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 72.9% on time across 300 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 302 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 Spirit on ATL to DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.98% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 292 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to DFW, every carrier
- Spirit on DFW to ATL, the return leg
- American Airlines on ATL to DFW77.2%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to DFW75.4%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to DFW60.4%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.