Carrier route record

NKDFW→SJU

Spirit Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to San Juan

Flights: 250
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 25%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on DFW to SJU lands a B−, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 250 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on DFW to SJU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 239 completed flights

Avg delay

103 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.40%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

69.5%

Every carrier on DFW to SJU, 989 flights

These figures cover 250 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 SJU

Spirit flew 250 of the 989 flights on DFW to SJU, about 25% of it. Its 76.2% on time is 7 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 69.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 76.2% to Frontier at 58.8%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DFW to SJU
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	250	76.2%	103 min	4.40%	B−
American Airlines	702	67.7%	62 min	1.57%	C
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	37	58.8%	58 min	8.11%	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 26 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–8am99 flights81.1%
8am–11am51 flights84.3%
11am–2pm40 flights77.5%
2pm–5pm8 flights—
5pm–8pm52 flights58.0%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 84.3% 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 99 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on DFW to SJU through the year

Jul–Sep 202583 flights77.1%
Oct–Dec 202564 flights70.3%
Jan–Mar 202683 flights77.8%
Apr–Jun 202620 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 85%. 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 76.2% on time across 250 flights.

Quarter by quarter Spirit on DFW to SJU held fairly steady: 77.1% in Jul–Sep 2025, 70.3% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 77.8% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.5%. 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 5,852 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
41%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
25%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, 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 2,409 of the 5,852 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,852 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 4.40%, 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. 11.3% 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.

At 2,165 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg runs 78.8% on time across 252 flights, within 3 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. 250 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 SJU

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.40% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 239 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures