Carrier route record

NKMCO→PIT

Spirit Airlines · Orlando to Pittsburgh

Flights: 432
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 20%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on MCO to PIT sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 432 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on MCO to PIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 417 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.47%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.6%

Every carrier on MCO to PIT, 2,178 flights

These figures cover 432 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 PIT

Spirit flew 432 of the 2,178 flights on MCO to PIT, about 20% of it. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 78.9% to Republic at 60.7%. Two 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 PIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	128	78.9%	66 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlines	1,590	75.9%	60 min	0.75%	B+
Spirit Airlines (this page)	432	74.6%	73 min	3.47%	C−
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	60.7%	46 min	0.00%	D+

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 30 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–8am91 flights92.3%
8am–11am18 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm171 flights72.9%
5pm–8pm13 flights—
8pm–5am139 flights62.7%

Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 92.3% 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 171 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on MCO to PIT through the year

Jul–Sep 2025140 flights76.4%
Oct–Dec 2025119 flights83.1%
Jan–Mar 2026146 flights65.9%
Apr–Jun 202627 flights—

Scale runs 55% to 90%. 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 74.6% on time across 432 flights.

Spirit on MCO to PIT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 83.1% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 65.9%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 144 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 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.7%. 24 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 7,725 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
40%
Carrier
28%
Late-arriving aircraft
21%
Extreme weather
11%
Security
0%

Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,725 reported delay minutes.

40% 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 3,068 minutes out of 7,725, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 3.47%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 11.3% 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 834 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 80.4% on time across 435 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 432 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 PIT

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.47% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over 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. 417 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