Carrier route record

NKIND→EWR

Spirit Airlines · Indianapolis to Newark

Flights: 316
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 14%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on IND to EWR earns an A−. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 316 flights, with a median arrival 17 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Spirit's IND to EWR record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 97 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

87.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 299 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.06%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.2%

Every carrier on IND to EWR, 2,223 flights

These figures cover 316 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 17 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Spirit against every carrier on IND to EWR

Spirit flew 316 of the 2,223 flights on IND to EWR, about 14% of it. Its 87.3% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 84.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 100.0% to Republic at 83.7%. One 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 IND to EWR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlinesthin sample	4	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	316	87.3%	83 min	5.06%	A−
Republic Airways	1,903	83.7%	75 min	3.73%	B−

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 39 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–8am186 flights93.7%
8am–11am81 flights87.5%
11am–2pm8 flights—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm34 flights54.8%
8pm–5am7 flights—

Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.8% on time, against 93.7% 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 186 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on IND to EWR through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights85.6%
Oct–Dec 2025114 flights84.5%
Jan–Mar 202684 flights90.5%
Apr–Jun 202626 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 87.3% on time across 316 flights.

Quarter by quarter Spirit on IND to EWR held fairly steady: 85.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 84.5% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 90.5% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 95.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 77.3%. 18 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. National Airspace System accounts for 74% of the 3,155 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.

National Airspace System
74%
Carrier
18%
Late-arriving aircraft
8%
Extreme weather
1%

74% 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 2,335 minutes out of 3,155, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,155 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 5.06%, against 1.81% 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

6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 645 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 70.1% on time across 314 flights, 17 points below 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 17 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 316 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 IND to EWR

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.06% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 299 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