Carrier route record

NKMCI→MCO

Spirit Airlines · Kansas City to Orlando

Flights: 277
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 MCI to MCO 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 277 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on MCI to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.0%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 267 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.61%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.1%

Every carrier on MCI to MCO, 1,559 flights

These figures cover 277 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 MCI to MCO

Spirit flew 277 of the 1,559 flights on MCI to MCO, about 18% of it. Its 79.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 79.0% to Republic at 71.4%. 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 MCI to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	277	79.0%	83 min	3.61%	B−
Southwest Airlines	1,254	76.9%	52 min	0.56%	B+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	71.4%	56 min	0.00%	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 25 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–8am134 flights88.9%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm93 flights64.1%
5pm–8pm50 flights81.6%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 64.1% for the afternoon window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 134 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on MCI to MCO through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights73.9%
Oct–Dec 202571 flights87.1%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights74.7%
Apr–Jun 202629 flights—

Scale runs 65% 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 79.0% on time across 277 flights.

Spirit on MCI to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 87.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 73.9%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 92 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.0%. 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. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 4,670 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
44%
Late-arriving aircraft
28%
National Airspace System
27%
Extreme weather
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 2,076 of the 4,670 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,670 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 88.9% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% 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 1,072 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 71.9% on time across 279 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 277 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 MCI to MCO

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.61% 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. 267 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