Carrier route record
NKMCO→CLT
Spirit Airlines · Orlando to Charlotte
- Flights
- 370
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on MCO to CLT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 370 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 3,686 at 79.3% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Spirit on MCO to CLT runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 48 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 349 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.6%
Every carrier on MCO to CLT, 4,735 flights
These figures cover 370 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on MCO to CLT
Spirit flew 370 of the 4,735 flights on MCO to CLT, about 8% of it. Its 72.5% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.3% to Spirit at 72.5%.
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,686 | 79.3% | 89 min | 1.68% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 679 | 78.5% | 70 min | 1.33% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 370 | 72.5% | 66 min | 5.41% | C− |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 79.3%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 26 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am55 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am69 flights71.9%
- 11am–2pm58 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm95 flights69.3%
- 5pm–8pm83 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am10 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 87.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 95 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on MCO to CLT through the year
- Jul–Sep 202549 flights91.7%
- Oct–Dec 202596 flights73.1%
- Jan–Mar 2026154 flights64.2%
- Apr–Jun 202671 flights74.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.5% on time across 370 flights.
Spirit on MCO to CLT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 91.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 64.2%, a swing of 28 points on roughly 93 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 59.3%, a spread of 26 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on MCO to CLT runs when it is late
The 96 late arrivals split 20 under half an hour, 30 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 46 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early80 flights22.9%
- Within 15 min173 flights49.6%
- 15–29 min late20 flights5.7%
- 30–59 min late30 flights8.6%
- 1–2 hours late32 flights9.2%
- 2+ hours late14 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 349 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 92 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 11 made it up before arrival. 15 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on MCO to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 November 2025, 3 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 November 2025 | 3 hours 5 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 October 2025 | 3 hours 4 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 April 2026 | 2 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 9 November 2025 | 2 hours 44 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 February 2026 | 2 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
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 6,353 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 35%Carrier
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 2,202 of the 6,353 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 6,353 reported delay minutes.
41% 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 2,629 minutes out of 6,353, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 5.41%, against 1.89% 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
13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 468 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 68.9% on time across 371 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 370 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 MCO to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.41% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; 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. 349 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to CLT, every carrier
- Spirit on CLT to MCO, the return leg
- American Airlines on MCO to CLT79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to CLT78.5%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.