Carrier route record
NKMSY→ORD
Spirit Airlines · New Orleans to Chicago
- Flights
- 215
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on MSY to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 215 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 842 at 82.3% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.3% on time across 842 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 200 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.51%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.1%
Every carrier on MSY to ORD, 2,400 flights
These figures cover 215 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 MSY to ORD
Spirit flew 215 of the 2,400 flights on MSY to ORD, about 9% of it. Its 70.5% on time is 8 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.3% to Frontier at 63.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 400 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 842 | 82.3% | 79 min | 1.19% | B |
| Envoy Air | 465 | 82.1% | 68 min | 1.72% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 336 | 78.0% | 73 min | 2.68% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 131 | 72.9% | 61 min | 1.53% | C |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 215 | 70.5% | 67 min | 6.51% | C− |
| American Airlines | 400 | 70.3% | 137 min | 2.25% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 11 | 63.6% | 67 min | 0.00% | D+ |
The spread between United and American is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 39 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am107 flights68.8%
- 11am–2pm34 flights93.9%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights55.0%
- 5pm–8pm26 flights—
- 8pm–5am7 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 93.9% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 55.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 107 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on MSY to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202542 flights75.6%
- Oct–Dec 202566 flights73.4%
- Jan–Mar 202682 flights74.0%
- Apr–Jun 202625 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 80%. 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 70.5% on time across 215 flights.
Quarter by quarter Spirit on MSY to ORD held fairly steady: 75.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 73.4% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 74.0% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 2 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Sunday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 62.5%. 13 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 56% of the 3,928 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.
- 56%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%Carrier
- 2%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
56% 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 2,194 minutes out of 3,928, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,928 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 6.51%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in fifteen 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. 10.0% 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 837 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 67.5% on time across 216 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 215 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 MSY to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 6.51% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 200 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSY to ORD, every carrier
- Spirit on ORD to MSY, the return leg
- United Airlines on MSY to ORD82.3%
- Envoy Air on MSY to ORD82.1%
- Republic Airways on MSY to ORD78.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on MSY to ORD72.9%
- American Airlines on MSY to ORD70.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.