Carrier route record
NKLAX→ORD
Spirit Airlines · Los Angeles to Chicago
- Flights
- 240
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 3%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on LAX to ORD lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four 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 240 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 3,380 at 80.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on LAX to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 229 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.17%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.4%
Every carrier on LAX to ORD, 6,964 flights
These figures cover 240 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 LAX to ORD
Spirit flew 240 of the 6,964 flights on LAX to ORD, about 3% of it. Its 77.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.5% to Frontier at 61.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 80.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 72.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 3,051 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 3,380 | 80.5% | 67 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 240 | 77.7% | 75 min | 4.17% | B− |
| American Airlines | 3,051 | 72.9% | 96 min | 2.33% | C |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 66 | 68.3% | 86 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 61.4% | 149 min | 4.85% | D− |
United leads American by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 22 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am29 flights—
- 8am–11am35 flights60.0%
- 11am–2pm53 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm5 flights—
- 8pm–5am117 flights82.4%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is the strongest at 82.4% on time. The full set of windows spans 22 points.
Across the year
Spirit on LAX to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025156 flights79.7%
- Oct–Dec 202569 flights76.2%
- Jan–Mar 20266 flights—
- Apr–Jun 20269 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 77.7% on time across 240 flights.
Split by quarter, Spirit on LAX to ORD logged 156 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 69 flights in Oct–Dec 2025, 6 flights in Jan–Mar 2026 and 9 flights in Apr–Jun 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 77.7% annual figure is the one to use.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.9%. 6 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 3,819 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 2%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 3,819 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 3,819 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 1,292 minutes out of 3,819, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.17%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
7.4% 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 1,744 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.4% on time across 235 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 240 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 LAX to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.17% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8pm–5am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 229 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to ORD, every carrier
- Spirit on ORD to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to ORD80.5%
- American Airlines on LAX to ORD72.9%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to ORD61.4%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.