Carrier route record
NKFLL→IND
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 372
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- 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 IND sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 372 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on FLL to IND runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
65.8%
Every carrier on FLL to IND, 1,047 flights
These figures cover 372 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.1% 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 IND
Spirit flew 372 of the 1,047 flights on FLL to IND, about 36% of it. Its 70.7% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 65.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 70.7% to Frontier at 57.1%. 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) | 372 | 70.7% | 86 min | 3.49% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 420 | 64.6% | 60 min | 0.95% | D+ |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 232 | 61.1% | 77 min | 1.29% | D |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 23 | 57.1% | 43 min | 8.70% | 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 45 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–8am19 flights—
- 8am–11am84 flights89.2%
- 11am–2pm10 flights—
- 2pm–5pm62 flights61.7%
- 5pm–8pm50 flights44.2%
- 8pm–5am147 flights68.5%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 44.2% on time, against 89.2% 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 147 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to IND through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 93.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. February was the busiest month here, with 53 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 51.0%. 35 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 43% of the 9,048 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%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 3,873 of the 9,048 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,048 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 89.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.49%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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. 15.1% 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 1,005 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 80.5% on time across 372 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 372 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 IND
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.49% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 358 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to IND, every carrier
- Spirit on IND to FLL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to IND64.6%
- Allegiant Air on FLL to IND61.1%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) 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.