Carrier route record
NKIAH→MCO
Spirit Airlines · Houston to Orlando
- Flights
- 662
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 18%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on IAH to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 662 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 2,471 at 85.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on IAH to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 646 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.42%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.6%
Every carrier on IAH to MCO, 3,669 flights
These figures cover 662 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 IAH to MCO
Spirit flew 662 of the 3,669 flights on IAH to MCO, about 18% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.1% to Frontier at 72.6%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 85.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 536 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,471 | 85.1% | 71 min | 0.65% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 662 | 75.5% | 84 min | 2.42% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 536 | 72.6% | 110 min | 0.93% | C+ |
The spread between United and Frontier is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 23 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am117 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am57 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm93 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm132 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm140 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am123 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.5% of the time, against 68.6% for the overnight window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 140 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on IAH to MCO through the year
August is the worst month at 52.5% on time, 37 points below October, the best at 89.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 78 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.3%. 16 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 4,928 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,214 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 11.0% 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 854 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 74.3% on time across 662 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. 662 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 IAH to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 662 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 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 646 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAH to MCO, every carrier
- Spirit on MCO to IAH, the return leg
- United Airlines on IAH to MCO85.1%
- Frontier Airlines on IAH to MCO72.6%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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.