Carrier route record
NKEWR→RDU
Spirit Airlines · Newark to Raleigh
- Flights
- 220
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 11%
- 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 RDU draws a D−. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 220 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on EWR to RDU runs 17 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 168 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
60.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 199 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
8.64%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.8%
Every carrier on EWR to RDU, 1,976 flights
These figures cover 220 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 19.6% 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 EWR to RDU
Spirit flew 220 of the 1,976 flights on EWR to RDU, about 11% of it. Its 60.8% on time is 16 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 93.6% to Spirit at 60.8%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 241 | 93.6% | 49 min | 3.32% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,515 | 76.3% | 71 min | 2.31% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 220 | 60.8% | 73 min | 8.64% | D− |
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 36 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–8am46 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm34 flights63.6%
- 2pm–5pm140 flights50.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 50.4% for the afternoon window. That is 36 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 140 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on EWR to RDU through the year
- Jul–Sep 202557 flights70.6%
- Oct–Dec 202566 flights66.1%
- Jan–Mar 202679 flights55.6%
- Apr–Jun 202618 flights—
Scale runs 45% 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 60.8% on time across 220 flights.
Spirit on EWR to RDU did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 70.6% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 55.6%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 73 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, Thursday is the strongest day at 68.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.5%. 8 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 43% of the 5,685 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 0%Security
43% 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 2,418 minutes out of 5,685, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,685 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 8.64%, against 1.81% 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 19.6% 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.
At 416 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 54.1% on time across 219 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 220 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 RDU
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 8.64% 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. 199 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to RDU, every carrier
- Spirit on RDU to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to RDU93.6%
- United Airlines on EWR to RDU76.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) 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.