Carrier route record
NKBNA→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Nashville to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 622
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 29%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on BNA to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 622 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on BNA to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 593 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.50%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.4%
Every carrier on BNA to FLL, 2,112 flights
These figures cover 622 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% 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 BNA to FLL
Spirit flew 622 of the 2,112 flights on BNA to FLL, about 29% of it. Its 74.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 75.9% to Spirit at 74.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,399 | 75.9% | 51 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 91 | 74.4% | 59 min | 1.10% | C |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 622 | 74.4% | 80 min | 4.50% | C− |
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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am189 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am103 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm49 flights70.2%
- 2pm–5pm101 flights62.2%
- 5pm–8pm22 flights—
- 8pm–5am158 flights67.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.1% of the time, against 62.2% for the afternoon window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 189 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on BNA to FLL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 78 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.4%. 26 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 12,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 16%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 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 12,128 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 4,196 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.50%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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. 11.6% 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 793 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 71.9% on time across 622 flights, within 3 points 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. 622 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 BNA to FLL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.50% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 593 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to BNA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to FLL75.9%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.