Carrier route record
NKATL→SJU
Spirit Airlines · Atlanta to San Juan
- Flights
- 125
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 6%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on ATL to SJU earns an F−, which is as low as this site's scale goes for a reason. Only 46.2% of flights arrive inside the 15-minute window, 31 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. Late arrivals average about an hour. Treat any tight connection here as a coin flip. That rests on 125 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,636 at 75.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on ATL to SJU runs 31 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 314 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
46.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 119 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.80%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.5%
Every carrier on ATL to SJU, 2,130 flights
These figures cover 125 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 16.0% 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 SJU
Spirit flew 125 of the 2,130 flights on ATL to SJU, about 6% of it. Its 46.2% on time is 24 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 75.8% to Spirit at 46.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 75.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 54.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 369 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,636 | 75.8% | 51 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 369 | 54.7% | 75 min | 1.63% | F |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 125 | 46.2% | 56 min | 4.80% | F− |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 30 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am28 flights—
- 11am–2pm52 flights57.1%
- 2pm–5pm44 flights26.8%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 20% to 65%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 57.1% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 26.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 52 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on ATL to SJU through the year
- Jul–Sep 202550 flights70.0%
- Oct–Dec 20252 flights—
- Jan–Mar 202649 flights25.0%
- Apr–Jun 202624 flights—
Scale runs 15% to 75%. 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 46.2% on time across 125 flights.
Split by quarter, Spirit on ATL to SJU logged 50 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 2 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 49 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 24 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 46.2% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 3,588 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
36% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,307 minutes out of 3,588, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,588 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.80%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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. 16.0% 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.
At 1,547 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 37.3% on time across 124 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 125 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 SJU
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.80% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 119 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to SJU, every carrier
- Spirit on SJU to ATL, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to SJU75.8%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to SJU54.7%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) 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.