Carrier route record
NKDTW→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 802
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DTW 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 802 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on DTW to FLL runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 780 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.4%
Every carrier on DTW to FLL, 2,706 flights
These figures cover 802 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 DTW to FLL
Spirit flew 802 of the 2,706 flights on DTW to FLL, about 30% of it. Its 70.0% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 74.2% to Frontier at 56.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,815 | 74.2% | 70 min | 1.43% | C |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 802 | 70.0% | 72 min | 2.49% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 56.5% | 69 min | 4.49% | 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 37 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–8am339 flights80.2%
- 8am–11am117 flights61.9%
- 11am–2pm4 flights—
- 2pm–5pm52 flights43.8%
- 5pm–8pm252 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am38 flights80.6%
Scale runs 35% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 80.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 37 points.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to FLL through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 91.5% 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 113 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.3%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
43% 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 7,308 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 16,834 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
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. 12.2% 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 1,127 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 62.4% on time across 813 flights, 8 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 802 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 FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 802 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 70.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 780 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to FLL74.2%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.