Carrier route record
NKCLT→MIA
Spirit Airlines · Charlotte to Miami
- Flights
- 265
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on CLT to MIA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 265 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on CLT to MIA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 60 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 250 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on CLT to MIA, 3,720 flights
These figures cover 265 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 CLT to MIA
Spirit flew 265 of the 3,720 flights on CLT to MIA, about 7% of it. Its 71.6% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.5% to Frontier at 70.6%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,244 | 76.5% | 79 min | 1.45% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 265 | 71.6% | 64 min | 5.28% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 211 | 70.6% | 139 min | 4.74% | 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 27 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–8am95 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am26 flights—
- 11am–2pm35 flights65.7%
- 2pm–5pm81 flights60.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am28 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 60.5% for the afternoon window. That is 27 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 95 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on CLT to MIA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202564 flights66.1%
- Oct–Dec 202592 flights62.2%
- Jan–Mar 202686 flights84.2%
- Apr–Jun 202623 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 71.6% on time across 265 flights.
Spirit on CLT to MIA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 84.2% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 62.2%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 88 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.8%. 18 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 55% of the 4,569 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.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
55% 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 2,501 minutes out of 4,569, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 4,569 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.28%, 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. 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 650 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 79.1% on time across 264 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 265 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 CLT to MIA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.28% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 250 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to MIA, every carrier
- Spirit on MIA to CLT, the return leg
- American Airlines on CLT to MIA76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to MIA70.6%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.