Carrier route record
NKMCO→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Orlando to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 738
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on MCO to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 738 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on MCO to FLL runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 60 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 726 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.63%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.2%
Every carrier on MCO to FLL, 1,448 flights
These figures cover 738 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 MCO to FLL
Spirit flew 738 of the 1,448 flights on MCO to FLL, most of the route. Its 71.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 81.9% to Southwest at 69.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 84 | 81.9% | 55 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 738 | 71.6% | 61 min | 1.63% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 626 | 69.2% | 56 min | 0.96% | 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 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–8am265 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am57 flights54.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm71 flights64.8%
- 5pm–8pm222 flights59.1%
- 8pm–5am123 flights58.3%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 54.5% for the morning window. That is 39 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 265 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on MCO to FLL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 95 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.0%. 17 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 46% of the 12,000 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.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 5,723 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 12,485 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.63% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 9.9% 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.
At 177 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 runs 72.0% on time across 736 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 738 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 FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 738 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 71.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 726 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to MCO, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to FLL69.2%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.