Carrier route record
NKPIT→FLL
Spirit Airlines · Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 407
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 37%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on PIT to FLL lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 407 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
77.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 382 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on PIT to FLL, 1,102 flights
These figures cover 407 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on PIT to FLL
Spirit flew 407 of the 1,102 flights on PIT to FLL, about 37% of it. Its 77.0% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 82.1% to Spirit at 77.0%. 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 | 303 | 82.1% | 82 min | 2.31% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 392 | 78.1% | 55 min | 1.02% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 407 | 77.0% | 68 min | 5.65% | B− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am169 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am93 flights70.5%
- 11am–2pm35 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm73 flights68.1%
- 8pm–5am34 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.8% of the time, against 68.1% for the evening window. That is 19 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 169 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 92.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.4%, a spread of 32 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on PIT to FLL runs when it is late
Spirit on PIT to FLL often beats the schedule: 120 of 382 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 88 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 24 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 29 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early120 flights31.4%
- Within 15 min174 flights45.5%
- 15–29 min late35 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late14 flights3.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 382 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
23 of 90 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 21 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on PIT to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 10 January 2026, 8 hours 15 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 10 January 2026 | 8 hours 15 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 November 2025 | 6 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 September 2025 | 3 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 March 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 March 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
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 5,981 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
38% 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 2,271 minutes out of 5,981, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,981 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 86.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 5.65%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.4% on time across 410 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. 407 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 5.65% 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. 382 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 FLL82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on PIT to FLL78.1%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.