Carrier route record

NKEWR→AUS

Spirit Airlines · Newark to Austin

Flights: 349
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 17%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on EWR to AUS sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 349 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on EWR to AUS runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 73 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 327 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

6.02%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.2%

Every carrier on EWR to AUS, 2,107 flights

These figures cover 349 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.1% 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 EWR to AUS

Spirit flew 349 of the 2,107 flights on EWR to AUS, about 17% of it. Its 70.3% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.2% to Spirit at 70.3%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on EWR to AUS
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	19	88.2%	29 min	0.00%	A+
United Airlines	1,739	79.6%	77 min	1.73%	B
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	349	70.3%	82 min	6.02%	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 26 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–8am32 flights—
8am–11am136 flights81.8%
11am–2pm35 flights55.9%
2pm–5pm49 flights61.7%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am97 flights66.3%

Scale runs 45% to 85%. 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 55.9% on time against 81.8% for 8am–11am. 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 136 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on EWR to AUS through the year

Jul–Sep 202569 flights84.1%
Oct–Dec 2025117 flights65.8%
Jan–Mar 2026117 flights68.2%
Apr–Jun 202646 flights65.0%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 70.3% on time across 349 flights.

Spirit on EWR to AUS did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 84.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 65.0%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 87 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.9%. 26 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 7,905 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
33%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 2,872 of the 7,905 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,905 reported delay minutes.

33% 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 2,637 minutes out of 7,905, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 6.02%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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. 14.1% 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.

At 1,504 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 55.4% on time across 348 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 349 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 EWR to AUS

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 327 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures