Carrier route record
NKFLL→DFW
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 722
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on FLL to DFW sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 722 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on FLL to DFW runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 698 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.7%
Every carrier on FLL to DFW, 2,984 flights
These figures cover 722 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 DFW
Spirit flew 722 of the 2,984 flights on FLL to DFW, about 24% of it. Its 73.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 73.5% to Frontier at 61.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 722 | 73.5% | 65 min | 2.91% | C |
| American Airlines | 1,986 | 73.2% | 100 min | 3.37% | C− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 134 | 72.0% | 73 min | 0.75% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 61.2% | 70 min | 4.23% | 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 43 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–8am261 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am19 flights—
- 11am–2pm16 flights—
- 2pm–5pm33 flights—
- 5pm–8pm92 flights47.7%
- 8pm–5am301 flights67.2%
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 90.5% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 301 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to DFW through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 49.4%. July is the strongest month at 88.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 39 points. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.5%. 23 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 12,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 4,529 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,929 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 3,906 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.91%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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. 9.2% 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 1,119 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 runs 73.5% on time across 723 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 722 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 DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.91% 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. 698 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to DFW, every carrier
- Spirit on DFW to FLL, the return leg
- American Airlines on FLL to DFW73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to DFW72.0%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to DFW61.2%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.