Carrier route record
NKBNA→MCO
Spirit Airlines · Nashville to Orlando
- Flights
- 713
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on BNA to MCO 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 713 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on BNA to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 678 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.0%
Every carrier on BNA to MCO, 3,465 flights
These figures cover 713 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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 MCO
Spirit flew 713 of the 3,465 flights on BNA to MCO, about 21% of it. Its 78.2% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.2% to Frontier at 73.5%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 713 | 78.2% | 84 min | 4.63% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 29 | 75.9% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,587 | 74.2% | 51 min | 0.77% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 136 | 73.5% | 81 min | 0.00% | 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 21 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–8am229 flights83.5%
- 8am–11am127 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm41 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm70 flights87.9%
- 5pm–8pm179 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am67 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 87.9% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 66.7%. 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 229 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on BNA to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 91.7% 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 88 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.0%. 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. 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
- 29%National Airspace System
- 23%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 12,470 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.63%, 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. 10.5% 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 616 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 72.2% on time across 714 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 713 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 MCO
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.63% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 678 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BNA to MCO, every carrier
- Spirit on MCO to BNA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to MCO74.2%
- Frontier Airlines on BNA to MCO73.5%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) 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.