Carrier route record
NKLAS→SAN
Spirit Airlines · Las Vegas to San Diego
- Flights
- 257
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 4%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on LAS to SAN lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 257 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, SkyWest Airlines, flew 1,492 at 74.6% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on LAS to SAN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 254 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
66.7%
Every carrier on LAS to SAN, 5,877 flights
These figures cover 257 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 LAS to SAN
Spirit flew 257 of the 5,877 flights on LAS to SAN, about 4% of it. Its 78.7% on time is 12 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 66.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 100.0% to Southwest at 62.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. SkyWest Airlines arrives on time 74.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 62.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,738 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 257 | 78.7% | 72 min | 1.17% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,492 | 74.6% | 63 min | 1.34% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 389 | 68.2% | 91 min | 1.29% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,738 | 62.5% | 50 min | 0.99% | D+ |
The spread between SkyWest and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 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 18 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am53 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am35 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm5 flights—
- 2pm–5pm47 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm23 flights—
- 8pm–5am94 flights77.4%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.5% of the time, against 74.5% for the afternoon window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 94 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on LAS to SAN through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025250 flights78.5%
- Oct–Dec 20257 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 85%. 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 78.7% on time across 257 flights.
Split by quarter, Spirit on LAS to SAN logged 250 flights in Jul–Sep 2025 and 7 flights in Oct–Dec 2025. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 78.7% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 91.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%. 29 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 55% of the 3,905 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.
- 55%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 0%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 55%, 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 2,167 of the 3,905 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,905 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.17% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.5% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 258 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.2% on time across 258 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 257 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 LAS to SAN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 257 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 78.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 254 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to SAN, every carrier
- Spirit on SAN to LAS, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on LAS to SAN74.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to SAN68.2%
- Southwest Airlines on LAS to SAN62.5%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) 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.