Carrier route record

NKFLL→TPA

Spirit Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Tampa

Flights: 826
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 58%
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 TPA 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 826 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on FLL to TPA runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 73 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 804 completed flights

Avg delay

67 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.42%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

73.8%

Every carrier on FLL to TPA, 1,422 flights

These figures cover 826 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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 TPA

Spirit flew 826 of the 1,422 flights on FLL to TPA, most of the route. Its 70.3% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 86.5% to JetBlue at 66.1%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on FLL to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	364	86.5%	58 min	0.27%	A+
Spirit Airlines (this page)	826	70.3%	67 min	2.42%	C
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	232	66.1%	77 min	0.86%	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 37 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–8am246 flights91.2%
8am–11am55 flights80.0%
11am–2pm28 flights—
2pm–5pm169 flights56.9%
5pm–8pm154 flights63.3%
8pm–5am174 flights54.4%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.4% on time, against 91.2% 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 246 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on FLL to TPA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 80.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.8%. 22 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 45% of the 16,000 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.

Carrier
45%
National Airspace System
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
24%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
1%

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 7,135 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,955 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 2.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.

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. 12.9% 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.

At 197 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 70.6% on time across 823 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. 826 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 TPA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 826 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 70.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 804 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures