Carrier route record
NKDTW→LAS
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 564
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DTW to LAS lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 564 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on DTW to LAS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 560 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.1%
Every carrier on DTW to LAS, 2,843 flights
These figures cover 564 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on DTW to LAS
Spirit flew 564 of the 2,843 flights on DTW to LAS, about 20% of it. Its 81.1% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 81.1% to Frontier at 62.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 564 | 81.1% | 51 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,897 | 75.9% | 60 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 337 | 70.8% | 42 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 45 | 62.2% | 62 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Departure window
When Spirit runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 564 flights.
- 5am–8am11 flights—
- 8am–11am185 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm80 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm29 flights—
- 5pm–8pm127 flights78.4%
- 8pm–5am132 flights80.3%
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.2% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 78.4%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 185 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to LAS through the year
December is the weak month at 64.5% on time, against 94.7% in November. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 110 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.8%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 5,405 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 38%National Airspace System
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%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 2,039 minutes out of 5,405, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,405 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 2,361 of the 5,405 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,749 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 80.7% on time across 563 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. 564 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 LAS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 564 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 81.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 560 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to LAS, every carrier
- Spirit on LAS to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to LAS75.9%
- Southwest Airlines on DTW to LAS70.8%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.