Carrier route record

NKMCO→MCI

Spirit Airlines · Orlando to Kansas City

Flights: 279
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 MCO to MCI 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 279 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on MCO to MCI runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 267 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.94%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

71.5%

Every carrier on MCO to MCI, 1,563 flights

These figures cover 279 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% 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 MCI

Spirit flew 279 of the 1,563 flights on MCO to MCI, about 18% of it. Its 71.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 85.7% to Southwest at 71.1%. 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 MCO to MCI
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	85.7%	28 min	0.00%	A+
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	279	71.9%	73 min	3.94%	C−
Southwest Airlines	1,256	71.1%	55 min	1.04%	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 32 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–8am—
8am–11am32 flights84.4%
11am–2pm59 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm50 flights87.8%
5pm–8pm9 flights—
8pm–5am129 flights55.5%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.5% on time, against 87.8% for the 2pm–5pm 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 129 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on MCO to MCI through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights73.6%
Oct–Dec 202573 flights76.4%
Jan–Mar 202686 flights66.7%
Apr–Jun 202628 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 80%. 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 71.9% on time across 279 flights.

Quarter by quarter Spirit on MCO to MCI held fairly steady: 73.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 76.4% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 66.7% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 10 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 51.2%. 34 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 5,506 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
26%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 2,053 of the 5,506 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,506 reported delay minutes.

32% 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 1,786 minutes out of 5,506, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 3.94%, 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.4% 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 79.0% on time across 277 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 279 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 MCI

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.94% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 2pm–5pm 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