Carrier route record
NKEWR→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Newark to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 888
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 19%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on EWR to FLL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 7.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 888 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 2,723 at 78.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Spirit on EWR to FLL runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 77 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 817 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.88%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on EWR to FLL, 4,671 flights
These figures cover 888 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.6% 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 FLL
Spirit flew 888 of the 4,671 flights on EWR to FLL, about 19% of it. Its 69.6% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.2% to Spirit at 69.6%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 72.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,060 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,723 | 78.2% | 71 min | 2.53% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,060 | 72.2% | 82 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 888 | 69.6% | 78 min | 7.88% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.6% 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 41 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am239 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am189 flights65.9%
- 11am–2pm157 flights69.1%
- 2pm–5pm44 flights69.2%
- 5pm–8pm189 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am70 flights47.5%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 47.5% on time, against 88.2% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 239 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on EWR to FLL through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 79.2% 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.3%, a spread of 32 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on EWR to FLL runs when it is late
Spirit on EWR to FLL often beats the schedule: 265 of 817 completed flights, 32%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 248 late arrivals split 67 under half an hour, 70 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 111 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early265 flights32.4%
- Within 15 min304 flights37.2%
- 15–29 min late67 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late70 flights8.6%
- 1–2 hours late72 flights8.8%
- 2+ hours late39 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 817 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
40 of 228 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. In the other direction, 60 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 FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on EWR to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 December 2025, 11 hours 33 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 December 2025 | 11 hours 33 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 24 November 2025 | 9 hours 3 minutes | Carrier |
| 3 November 2025 | 8 hours 48 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 5 hours 45 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 3 March 2026 | 5 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 28%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
46% 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 8,838 minutes out of 19,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 19,421 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 7.88%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
13.6% 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 1,065 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 58.9% on time across 887 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 888 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 FLL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.88% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 817 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to EWR, the return leg
- United Airlines on EWR to FLL78.2%
- JetBlue Airways on EWR to FLL72.2%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) 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.