Carrier route record
NKMEM→MCO
Spirit Airlines · Memphis to Orlando
- Flights
- 326
- 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 MEM to MCO lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 326 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on MEM to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 315 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.9%
Every carrier on MEM to MCO, 770 flights
These figures cover 326 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 MEM to MCO
Spirit flew 326 of the 770 flights on MEM to MCO, about 42% of it. Its 78.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 78.1% to Southwest at 77.8%.
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 | 326 | 78.1% | 76 min | 3.37% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 444 | 77.8% | 56 min | 2.25% | B |
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 31 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–8am79 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am11 flights—
- 11am–2pm109 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm18 flights—
- 5pm–8pm66 flights59.1%
- 8pm–5am43 flights83.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.1% on time, against 89.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 109 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on MEM to MCO through the year
- Jul–Sep 2025123 flights69.1%
- Oct–Dec 202588 flights87.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.1%
- Apr–Jun 202625 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. 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 78.1% on time across 326 flights.
Spirit on MEM to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 87.4% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 69.1%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 109 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, Friday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.1%. 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 43% of the 5,209 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
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
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 2,214 minutes out of 5,209, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,209 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.37%, 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
8.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 73.4% on time across 324 flights, 5 points below 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. 326 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 MEM to MCO
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.37% 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. 315 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.