Carrier route record
NKDTW→TPA
Spirit Airlines · Detroit to Tampa
- Flights
- 521
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- 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 TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 521 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on DTW to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 499 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.0%
Every carrier on DTW to TPA, 2,370 flights
These figures cover 521 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 TPA
Spirit flew 521 of the 2,370 flights on DTW to TPA, about 22% of it. Its 74.7% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 80.9% to Southwest at 40.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,716 | 80.9% | 61 min | 1.34% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 521 | 74.7% | 63 min | 3.84% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 70.9% | 60 min | 0.78% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 40.0% | 23 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 17 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–8am200 flights80.7%
- 8am–11am39 flights63.9%
- 11am–2pm33 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm15 flights—
- 5pm–8pm71 flights76.1%
- 8pm–5am163 flights66.9%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 80.7% of the time, against 63.9% for the morning window. That is 17 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 200 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on DTW to TPA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 97.9% 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 71 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.0%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 7,912 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 7,912 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 7,912 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 2,741 of the 7,912 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.84%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% 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 983 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 78.8% on time across 522 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 521 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 TPA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.84% 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. 499 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to TPA, every carrier
- Spirit on TPA to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to TPA80.9%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to TPA70.9%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.