Carrier route record
NKDFW→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 723
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 723 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on DFW to FLL runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 690 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.43%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on DFW to FLL, 2,985 flights
These figures cover 723 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 DFW to FLL
Spirit flew 723 of the 2,985 flights on DFW to FLL, about 24% of it. Its 73.5% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 77.3% to American at 68.6%. 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 | 133 | 77.3% | 143 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 723 | 73.5% | 70 min | 4.43% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 143 | 69.8% | 51 min | 2.80% | C |
| American Airlines | 1,986 | 68.6% | 71 min | 3.32% | 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 18 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–8am388 flights79.5%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm37 flights64.9%
- 5pm–8pm227 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am71 flights61.2%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 79.5% 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 388 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 82.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.6%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 38%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%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 4,879 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 12,742 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,096 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 4.43%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 25 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. 11.0% 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 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. 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 runs 73.5% on time across 722 flights, within half a point 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. 723 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 4.43% 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. 690 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 FLL77.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to FLL69.8%
- American Airlines on DFW to FLL68.6%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
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.