Carrier route record
NKDTW→EWR
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Newark
- Flights
- 434
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 12%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DTW to EWR draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 434 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 1,539 at 81.8% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Spirit on DTW to EWR runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 97 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 395 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.4%
Every carrier on DTW to EWR, 3,642 flights
These figures cover 434 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on DTW to EWR
Spirit flew 434 of the 3,642 flights on DTW to EWR, about 12% of it. Its 67.6% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 91.1% to Spirit at 67.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.8% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 75.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,612 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 91.1% | 112 min | 1.75% | A |
| Republic Airways | 1,539 | 81.8% | 75 min | 6.43% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,612 | 75.4% | 78 min | 3.91% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 434 | 67.6% | 72 min | 8.99% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.4% 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.
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 38 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am117 flights80.2%
- 8am–11am60 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm51 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm57 flights52.8%
- 8pm–5am149 flights50.0%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 87.9% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 149 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to EWR through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 75.9% 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 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 49.1%, a spread of 30 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on DTW to EWR runs when it is late
Spirit on DTW to EWR often beats the schedule: 122 of 395 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 128 late arrivals split 34 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 56 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early122 flights30.9%
- Within 15 min145 flights36.7%
- 15–29 min late34 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late38 flights9.6%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights9.1%
- 2+ hours late20 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 395 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 122 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. In the other direction, 21 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 EWR.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on DTW to EWR
The latest arrival of the period was on 24 October 2025, 12 hours 19 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across October, February, March and April, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 24 October 2025 | 12 hours 19 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 6 February 2026 | 5 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 February 2026 | 5 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 March 2026 | 3 hours 22 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 April 2026 | 3 hours 16 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 52% of the 9,221 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 4,763 minutes out of 9,221, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,221 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 8.99%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
14.2% 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.
At 488 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 65.7% on time across 433 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. 434 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 DTW to EWR
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.99% 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. 395 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to EWR, every carrier
- Spirit on EWR to DTW, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DTW to EWR81.8%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to EWR75.4%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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.