Carrier route record
NKDTW→MIA
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Miami
- Flights
- 248
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 14%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on DTW to MIA lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 248 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 394 at 88.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Spirit on DTW to MIA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 238 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.03%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.7%
Every carrier on DTW to MIA, 1,757 flights
These figures cover 248 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on DTW to MIA
Spirit flew 248 of the 1,757 flights on DTW to MIA, about 14% of it. Its 77.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 88.9% to Frontier at 66.7%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 88.9% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 79.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 929 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 394 | 88.9% | 84 min | 1.02% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 108 | 81.5% | 72 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 929 | 79.1% | 55 min | 1.08% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 248 | 77.7% | 61 min | 4.03% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 71.4% | 39 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 66.7% | 96 min | 1.56% | C |
American leads Delta by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 21 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am105 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am9 flights—
- 11am–2pm27 flights—
- 2pm–5pm86 flights72.6%
- 5pm–8pm21 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 72.6% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 105 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to MIA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202573 flights79.7%
- Jan–Mar 2026117 flights69.6%
- Apr–Jun 202628 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. 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 77.7% on time across 248 flights.
Spirit on DTW to MIA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 69.6%, a swing of 24 points on roughly 83 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on DTW to MIA runs when it is late
Spirit on DTW to MIA often beats the schedule: 64 of 238 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 53 late arrivals split 14 under half an hour, 20 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early64 flights26.9%
- Within 15 min121 flights50.8%
- 15–29 min late14 flights5.9%
- 30–59 min late20 flights8.4%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights5.0%
- 2+ hours late7 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 238 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 54 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on DTW to MIA
The latest arrival of the period was on 19 December 2025, 3 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Four of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 19 December 2025 | 3 hours 11 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 31 December 2025 | 3 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 2 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 December 2025 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 February 2026 | 2 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
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 3,255 reported delay minutes.
- 42%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 0%Security
42% 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 1,352 minutes out of 3,255, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,255 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.03%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,145 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 63.8% on time across 245 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 248 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 MIA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.03% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 238 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to MIA, every carrier
- Spirit on MIA to DTW, the return leg
- American Airlines on DTW to MIA88.9%
- Envoy Air on DTW to MIA81.5%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to MIA79.1%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.