Carrier route record
NKFLL→PHL
Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 572
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- 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 PHL sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 572 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 1,628 at 77.4% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.4% on time across 1,628 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 541 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
72.0%
Every carrier on FLL to PHL, 3,589 flights
These figures cover 572 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on FLL to PHL
Spirit flew 572 of the 3,589 flights on FLL to PHL, about 16% of it. Its 71.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.4% to Frontier at 62.3%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 77.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 62.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 657 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,628 | 77.4% | 116 min | 2.83% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 572 | 71.3% | 71 min | 5.24% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 732 | 69.0% | 73 min | 3.28% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 657 | 62.3% | 107 min | 3.65% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 34 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am199 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am15 flights—
- 11am–2pm10 flights—
- 2pm–5pm12 flights—
- 5pm–8pm97 flights55.1%
- 8pm–5am239 flights59.4%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.1% on time, against 89.6% 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 239 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on FLL to PHL through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 90.2% 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 55.4%, a spread of 32 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on FLL to PHL runs when it is late
The 155 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 55 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early135 flights25.0%
- Within 15 min251 flights46.4%
- 15–29 min late35 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late55 flights10.2%
- 1–2 hours late46 flights8.5%
- 2+ hours late19 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 541 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
20 of 164 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 12% of them. 11 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on FLL to PHL
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 February 2026, 13 hours 54 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 February 2026 | 13 hours 54 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 8 November 2025 | 4 hours 28 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 17 March 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 March 2026 | 4 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,016 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,073 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.24%, 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
12.0% 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 993 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 runs 69.9% on time across 571 flights, within about 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. 572 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 PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.24% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 541 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to PHL, every carrier
- Spirit on PHL to FLL, the return leg
- American Airlines on FLL to PHL77.4%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to PHL69.0%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to PHL62.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.