Carrier route record
NKEWR→CLT
Spirit Airlines · Newark to Charlotte
- Flights
- 347
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on EWR to CLT 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 347 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 787 at 87.5% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.5% on time across 787 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.4%
Every carrier on EWR to CLT, 3,688 flights
These figures cover 347 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on EWR to CLT
Spirit flew 347 of the 3,688 flights on EWR to CLT, about 9% of it. Its 70.2% on time is 10 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.5% to Spirit at 70.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 87.5% of the time; United Airlines manages 75.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 723 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 787 | 87.5% | 71 min | 3.94% | A− |
| American Airlines | 1,831 | 81.0% | 111 min | 3.71% | B− |
| United Airlines | 723 | 75.7% | 90 min | 1.94% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 347 | 70.2% | 77 min | 7.20% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 3.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after 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 14 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am35 flights75.8%
- 11am–2pm156 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm6 flights—
- 8pm–5am131 flights62.7%
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 76.4% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 156 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on EWR to CLT through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025122 flights64.1%
- Jan–Mar 2026150 flights71.4%
- Apr–Jun 202645 flights67.4%
Scale runs 55% to 75%. 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 70.2% on time across 347 flights.
Quarter by quarter Spirit on EWR to CLT held fairly steady: 64.1% in Oct–Dec 2025, 71.4% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 67.4% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 7 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.5%, a spread of 33 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on EWR to CLT runs when it is late
Spirit on EWR to CLT often beats the schedule: 87 of 322 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 96 late arrivals split 25 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 41 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early87 flights27.0%
- Within 15 min139 flights43.2%
- 15–29 min late25 flights7.8%
- 30–59 min late30 flights9.3%
- 1–2 hours late23 flights7.1%
- 2+ hours late18 flights5.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 322 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
14 of 92 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 18 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at CLT.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on EWR to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 20 December 2025, 7 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 20 December 2025 | 7 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 November 2025 | 4 hours 48 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 14 December 2025 | 4 hours 22 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 1 December 2025 | 3 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 1 February 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 7,396 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 31%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 3,260 minutes out of 7,396, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,396 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 7.20%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 529 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 74.7% on time across 345 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 347 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 CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.20% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 322 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to CLT, every carrier
- Spirit on CLT to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to CLT87.5%
- American Airlines on EWR to CLT81.0%
- United Airlines on EWR to CLT75.7%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.