Carrier route record
NKFLL→BWI
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore
- Flights
- 846
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on FLL to BWI carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 846 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on FLL to BWI runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 68 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 809 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.02%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.2%
Every carrier on FLL to BWI, 3,101 flights
These figures cover 846 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 FLL to BWI
Spirit flew 846 of the 3,101 flights on FLL to BWI, about 27% of it. Its 70.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 74.2% to Spirit at 70.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,119 | 74.2% | 56 min | 2.08% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 136 | 71.1% | 93 min | 5.88% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 846 | 70.8% | 67 min | 4.02% | 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 46 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–8am173 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am102 flights97.1%
- 11am–2pm59 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm160 flights60.1%
- 5pm–8pm72 flights51.4%
- 8pm–5am280 flights58.9%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.4% on time, against 97.1% for the 8am–11am 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 280 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to BWI through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 87.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 103 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.7%. 25 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. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 16,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 7,163 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,802 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 97.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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. 11.4% 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 925 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 78.5% on time across 847 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 846 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 FLL to BWI
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 809 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to BWI, every carrier
- Spirit on BWI to FLL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to BWI74.2%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to BWI71.1%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.