Carrier route record
NKCMH→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Columbus to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 430
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on CMH to FLL lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 430 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on CMH 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 410 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.5%
Every carrier on CMH to FLL, 836 flights
These figures cover 430 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on CMH to FLL
Spirit flew 430 of the 836 flights on CMH to FLL, most of the route. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.3% to Frontier at 57.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 430 | 78.3% | 71 min | 4.65% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 386 | 77.5% | 55 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 57.9% | 132 min | 5.00% | 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 28 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–8am245 flights85.5%
- 8am–11am62 flights71.4%
- 11am–2pm49 flights57.8%
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am70 flights75.7%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 57.8% on time against 85.5% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 245 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on CMH to FLL through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025152 flights85.4%
- Oct–Dec 202579 flights71.4%
- Jan–Mar 2026159 flights72.5%
- Apr–Jun 202640 flights85.0%
Scale runs 65% 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 78.3% on time across 430 flights.
Spirit on CMH to FLL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.4% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 71.4%, a swing of 14 points on roughly 108 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 95.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.3%. 27 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 44% of the 6,324 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
44% 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 2,776 minutes out of 6,324, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,324 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 4.65%, 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
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 973 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 72.0% on time across 432 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. 430 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 CMH to FLL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.65% 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. 410 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to CMH, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to FLL77.5%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) 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.