Carrier route record
NKDTW→RSW
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Fort Myers
- Flights
- 386
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 21%
- 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 RSW sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 386 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on DTW to RSW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 367 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.7%
Every carrier on DTW to RSW, 1,820 flights
These figures cover 386 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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 RSW
Spirit flew 386 of the 1,820 flights on DTW to RSW, about 21% of it. Its 73.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 75.1% to Frontier at 71.2%. 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 | 1,354 | 75.1% | 68 min | 1.33% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 386 | 73.8% | 61 min | 4.92% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 80 | 71.2% | 74 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 32 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–8am52 flights98.1%
- 8am–11am130 flights73.9%
- 11am–2pm47 flights65.9%
- 2pm–5pm104 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm53 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 65.9% on time against 98.1% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 130 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to RSW through the year
- Jul–Sep 202568 flights91.2%
- Oct–Dec 202589 flights87.4%
- Jan–Mar 2026187 flights64.9%
- Apr–Jun 202642 flights53.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. 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 73.8% on time across 386 flights.
Spirit on DTW to RSW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 91.2% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 53.7%, a swing of 38 points on roughly 97 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.5%. 22 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 44% of the 5,832 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%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 2,592 minutes out of 5,832, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,832 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 98.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.92%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
8.7% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,084 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 68.3% on time across 385 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 386 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 RSW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.92% 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. 367 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to RSW, every carrier
- Spirit on RSW to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to RSW75.1%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Southwest Florida International (RSW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.