Carrier route record
NKMCO→MEM
Spirit Airlines · Orlando to Memphis
- Flights
- 324
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on MCO to MEM sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 324 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on MCO to MEM runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 316 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on MCO to MEM, 768 flights
These figures cover 324 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 MEM
Spirit flew 324 of the 768 flights on MCO to MEM, about 42% of it. Its 73.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 73.4% to Southwest at 71.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 324 | 73.4% | 70 min | 2.47% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 444 | 71.3% | 63 min | 2.03% | C |
Departure window
When Spirit runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 324 flights.
- 5am–8am6 flights—
- 8am–11am108 flights73.3%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm54 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm91 flights75.6%
- 8pm–5am65 flights69.2%
Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 75.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 6 points.
Across the year
Spirit on MCO to MEM through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025123 flights69.1%
- Oct–Dec 202587 flights80.2%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights73.8%
- Apr–Jun 202624 flights—
Scale runs 60% 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 73.4% on time across 324 flights.
Spirit on MCO to MEM did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 80.2% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 69.1%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 108 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.1%. 24 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 43% of the 5,856 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.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 35%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 2,059 of the 5,856 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 5,856 reported delay minutes.
43% 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 2,515 minutes out of 5,856, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations sit at 2.47% 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. 9.2% 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 684 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 78.1% on time across 326 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 324 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 MEM
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 324 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 73.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 316 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.