Carrier route record
NKPIT→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 469
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on PIT to FLL lands a B−, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 469 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on PIT to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 444 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.9%
Every carrier on PIT to FLL, 1,105 flights
These figures cover 469 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on PIT to FLL
Spirit flew 469 of the 1,105 flights on PIT to FLL, about 42% of it. Its 79.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 82.3% to Spirit at 79.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 241 | 82.3% | 91 min | 1.66% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 395 | 79.3% | 54 min | 1.01% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 469 | 79.1% | 70 min | 4.90% | 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 18 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–8am226 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am93 flights70.5%
- 11am–2pm35 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm78 flights70.1%
- 8pm–5am34 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 70.1% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 226 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on PIT to FLL through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 91.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 61 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 25 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 6,538 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 32%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
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 2,325 minutes out of 6,538, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 6,538 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 88.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.90%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
7.2% 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 994 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 70.9% on time across 471 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 469 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 PIT to FLL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.90% 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. 444 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to FLL, every carrier
- Spirit on FLL to PIT, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on PIT to FLL82.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PIT to FLL79.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.