Carrier route record
NKDFW→MCO
Spirit Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Orlando
- Flights
- 513
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 10%
- 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 MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 513 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Frontier Airlines, flew 731 at 74.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on DFW to MCO runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 495 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
63.6%
Every carrier on DFW to MCO, 4,911 flights
These figures cover 513 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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 DFW to MCO
Spirit flew 513 of the 4,911 flights on DFW to MCO, about 10% of it. Its 69.1% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 63.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 83.3% to American at 60.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 74.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 60.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,631 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 36 | 83.3% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 731 | 74.1% | 85 min | 1.78% | C |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 513 | 69.1% | 70 min | 3.31% | C− |
| American Airlines | 3,631 | 60.4% | 69 min | 3.06% | D− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 41 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am155 flights80.3%
- 8am–11am63 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm73 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm124 flights55.4%
- 5pm–8pm88 flights49.4%
- 8pm–5am10 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 49.4% on time, against 90.5% for the 8am–11am 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 155 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DFW to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.9% 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Saturday the weakest at 58.2%. 25 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 33%Carrier
- 31%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.5% on time here. The split is drawn from 10,661 reported delay minutes.
No single cause dominates. carrier at 33%, national airspace system at 31% and late-arriving aircraft at 31% split the 11,000 reported delay minutes between them. An even spread like this usually means the operation is running close to its designed capacity with no one obvious weak point, and it is the hardest pattern for a traveller to route around.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 13.1% 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 985 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 69.5% on time across 512 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. 513 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 MCO
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 495 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to MCO, every carrier
- Spirit on MCO to DFW, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to MCO74.1%
- American Airlines on DFW to MCO60.4%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.