Carrier route record
NKFLL→CLT
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte
- Flights
- 606
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 20%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on FLL to CLT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 606 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Spirit on FLL to CLT runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 88 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 577 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.2%
Every carrier on FLL to CLT, 3,060 flights
These figures cover 606 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on FLL to CLT
Spirit flew 606 of the 3,060 flights on FLL to CLT, about 20% of it. Its 68.5% on time is 9 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.7% to JetBlue at 58.2%. Two 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 | 2,068 | 82.7% | 94 min | 1.89% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 606 | 68.5% | 68 min | 4.79% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 224 | 61.7% | 78 min | 6.70% | D− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 162 | 58.2% | 69 min | 1.85% | D |
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 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am203 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am19 flights—
- 11am–2pm39 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm65 flights65.1%
- 5pm–8pm87 flights42.2%
- 8pm–5am193 flights55.6%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 42.2% on time, against 87.2% 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 203 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to CLT through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 82.7% 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 89 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.5%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on FLL to CLT runs when it is late
Spirit on FLL to CLT often beats the schedule: 161 of 577 completed flights, 28%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 182 late arrivals split 41 under half an hour, 64 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 77 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early161 flights27.9%
- Within 15 min234 flights40.6%
- 15–29 min late41 flights7.1%
- 30–59 min late64 flights11.1%
- 1–2 hours late56 flights9.7%
- 2+ hours late21 flights3.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 577 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
39 of 213 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. Only 8 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on FLL to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 5 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 5 hours 49 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 21 March 2026 | 5 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 April 2026 | 4 hours 30 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 September 2025 | 4 hours 23 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 March 2026 | 3 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
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 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,090 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,360 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 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.79%, against 1.89% 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
13.3% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.7% on time across 607 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 606 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 4.79% 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. 577 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 CLT82.7%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to CLT61.7%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to CLT58.2%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.