Carrier route record
NKDFW→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 596
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DFW to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 596 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Spirit on DFW to FLL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 565 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.03%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.7%
Every carrier on DFW to FLL, 3,143 flights
These figures cover 596 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on DFW to FLL
Spirit flew 596 of the 3,143 flights on DFW to FLL, about 19% of it. Its 72.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 75.8% to Frontier at 67.5%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 311 | 75.8% | 113 min | 2.57% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 596 | 72.4% | 69 min | 5.03% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,031 | 68.3% | 67 min | 2.61% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 205 | 67.5% | 57 min | 1.95% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am327 flights77.0%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm22 flights—
- 5pm–8pm176 flights69.5%
- 8pm–5am71 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 77.0% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 327 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DFW to FLL through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 83.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on DFW to FLL runs when it is late
The 156 late arrivals split 50 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 64 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early118 flights20.9%
- Within 15 min291 flights51.5%
- 15–29 min late50 flights8.8%
- 30–59 min late42 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late29 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 565 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
20 of 140 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 36 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on DFW to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 December 2025, 5 hours 14 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 December 2025 | 5 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 March 2026 | 4 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 April 2026 | 3 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 14 December 2025 | 3 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 March 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 38%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 4,049 minutes out of 11,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 10,777 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,558 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.03%, against 1.89% 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
11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,119 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.
The return leg runs 70.7% on time across 600 flights, within 2 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. 596 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 DFW to FLL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.03% 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. 565 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to DFW, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DFW to FLL75.8%
- American Airlines on DFW to FLL68.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to FLL67.5%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.