Carrier route record

NKCHS→EWR

Spirit Airlines · Charleston to Newark

Flights: 275
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 20%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on CHS to EWR draws a D−. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is an hour and a half behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 275 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on CHS to EWR runs 15 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 150 extra late arrivals.

On time

62.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 257 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.55%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.9%

Every carrier on CHS to EWR, 1,362 flights

These figures cover 275 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 19.1% 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 CHS to EWR

Spirit flew 275 of the 1,362 flights on CHS to EWR, about 20% of it. Its 62.6% on time is 16 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 83.4% to Spirit at 62.6%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CHS to EWR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	804	83.4%	105 min	1.99%	B
Republic Airwaysthin sample	283	81.6%	101 min	6.71%	B−
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	275	62.6%	83 min	6.55%	D−

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 15 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–8am7 flights—
8am–11am26 flights—
11am–2pm54 flights64.7%
2pm–5pm41 flights50.0%
5pm–8pm112 flights58.7%
8pm–5am35 flights63.6%

Scale runs 40% to 70%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 64.7% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 50.0%. 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 112 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on CHS to EWR through the year

Jul–Sep 202558 flights70.4%
Oct–Dec 2025117 flights57.3%
Jan–Mar 202676 flights62.9%
Apr–Jun 202624 flights—

Scale runs 50% 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 62.6% on time across 275 flights.

Spirit on CHS to EWR did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 70.4% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 57.3%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 92 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, Friday is the strongest day at 66.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 55.1%. 12 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. National Airspace System accounts for 68% of the 7,941 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.

National Airspace System
68%
Late-arriving aircraft
26%
Carrier
6%
Security
0%

68% 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 5,376 minutes out of 7,941, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,941 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 6.55%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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. 19.1% 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 628 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 73.3% on time across 275 flights, 11 points above 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 11 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 275 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 CHS to EWR

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.55% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 257 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures