Carrier route record

NKEWR→IND

Spirit Airlines · Newark to Indianapolis

Flights: 314
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 14%
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 IND sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 314 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on EWR to IND runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 75 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 298 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.10%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.6%

Every carrier on EWR to IND, 2,221 flights

These figures cover 314 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.8% 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 IND

Spirit flew 314 of the 2,221 flights on EWR to IND, about 14% of it. Its 70.1% on time is 12 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 100.0% to Spirit at 70.1%. 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 IND
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	3	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Republic Airways	1,904	83.5%	87 min	4.10%	B−
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	314	70.1%	74 min	5.10%	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 18 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–8am31 flights73.3%
8am–11am27 flights—
11am–2pm63 flights77.0%
2pm–5pm59 flights71.9%
5pm–8pm44 flights59.1%
8pm–5am90 flights60.8%

Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.1% on time, against 77.0% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 90 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on EWR to IND through the year

Jul–Sep 202591 flights75.0%
Oct–Dec 2025113 flights66.1%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights67.5%
Apr–Jun 202625 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 80%. 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 70.1% on time across 314 flights.

Quarter by quarter Spirit on EWR to IND held fairly steady: 75.0% in Jul–Sep 2025, 66.1% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 67.5% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.1%. 24 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 57% of the 6,547 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.

National Airspace System
57%
Late-arriving aircraft
21%
Carrier
20%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

57% 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 3,719 minutes out of 6,547, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,547 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 5.10%, 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.8% 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 645 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 87.3% on time across 316 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 314 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 IND

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.10% 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. 298 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