Carrier route record
NKMCO→MSY
Spirit Airlines · Orlando to New Orleans
- Flights
- 517
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 23%
- 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 MSY sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 517 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 MSY runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 46 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 503 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.3%
Every carrier on MCO to MSY, 2,278 flights
These figures cover 517 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 MSY
Spirit flew 517 of the 2,278 flights on MCO to MSY, about 23% of it. Its 73.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 83.0% to Spirit at 73.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 168 | 83.0% | 78 min | 1.19% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,593 | 73.8% | 58 min | 0.38% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 517 | 73.0% | 67 min | 2.71% | 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 24 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–8am82 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am6 flights—
- 11am–2pm42 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm19 flights—
- 5pm–8pm196 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am172 flights69.7%
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 89.0% of the time, against 65.1% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 196 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on MCO to MSY through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 69 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.3%. 32 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 9,172 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 33%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% 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 3,305 minutes out of 9,172, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,172 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.71%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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. 12.1% 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 551 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 79.8% on time across 516 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. 517 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 MSY
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 517 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 73.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 503 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to MSY, every carrier
- Spirit on MSY to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to MSY83.0%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to MSY73.8%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.