Carrier route record
NKFLL→CLT
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte
- Flights
- 748
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- 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 CLT 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 748 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 CLT runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 63 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 718 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.7%
Every carrier on FLL to CLT, 3,015 flights
These figures cover 748 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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 FLL to CLT
Spirit flew 748 of the 3,015 flights on FLL to CLT, about 25% of it. Its 71.3% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.3% to Frontier at 65.6%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,105 | 82.3% | 98 min | 1.95% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 748 | 71.3% | 67 min | 4.01% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 65.6% | 75 min | 3.09% | 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 42 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–8am255 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am22 flights—
- 11am–2pm39 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm72 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm113 flights47.7%
- 8pm–5am247 flights61.5%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.7% on time, against 89.5% 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 255 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to CLT through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 49.4%. August is the strongest month at 84.6%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 35 points. March was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 5,279 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,702 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 89.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.01%, 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. 11.8% 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 632 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 76.3% on time across 746 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. 748 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 CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.01% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 718 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to CLT, every carrier
- Spirit on CLT to FLL, the return leg
- American Airlines on FLL to CLT82.3%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to CLT65.6%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.