Carrier route record
NKMKE→MCO
Spirit Airlines · Milwaukee to Orlando
- Flights
- 117
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on MKE to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 117 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on MKE 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
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 112 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on MKE to MCO, 1,408 flights
These figures cover 117 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 MKE to MCO
Spirit flew 117 of the 1,408 flights on MKE to MCO, about 8% of it. Its 75.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 76.6% to Spirit at 75.9%. 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 | 162 | 76.6% | 121 min | 2.47% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,129 | 76.3% | 51 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 117 | 75.9% | 73 min | 4.27% | B− |
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 117 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Spirit's MKE to MCO record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 75.9% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Spirit on MKE to MCO through the year
- Jul–Sep 202571 flights70.4%
- Oct–Dec 202539 flights85.7%
- Jan–Mar 20267 flights—
Scale runs 60% 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 75.9% on time across 117 flights.
Split by quarter, Spirit on MKE to MCO logged 71 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 39 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 7 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 75.9% annual figure is the one to use.
Delay causes
Why Spirit runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 45% of the 1,981 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.
- 45%National Airspace System
- 36%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 708 of the 1,981 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,981 reported delay minutes.
45% 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 892 minutes out of 1,981, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.27%, 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
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 1,066 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 runs 76.1% on time across 117 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 117 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 MKE to MCO
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.27% 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. 112 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MKE to MCO, every carrier
- Spirit on MCO to MKE, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MKE to MCO76.6%
- Southwest Airlines on MKE to MCO76.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) 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.