Carrier route record

NKSAT→MCO

Spirit Airlines · San Antonio to Orlando

Flights: 254
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.

Spirit on SAT to MCO lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 254 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 SAT to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 236 completed flights

Avg delay

101 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

5.91%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.4%

Every carrier on SAT to MCO, 1,100 flights

These figures cover 254 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 SAT to MCO

Spirit flew 254 of the 1,100 flights on SAT to MCO, about 23% of it. Its 77.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 77.9% to Frontier at 73.5%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on SAT to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	747	77.9%	57 min	0.40%	B+
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	254	77.5%	101 min	5.91%	B−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	99	73.5%	115 min	1.01%	C

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 30 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–8am97 flights91.1%
8am–11am2 flights—
11am–2pm72 flights76.2%
2pm–5pm48 flights60.9%
5pm–8pm26 flights—
8pm–5am9 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 60.9% for the afternoon window. That is 30 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 97 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on SAT to MCO through the year

Jul–Sep 202563 flights80.6%
Oct–Dec 202573 flights76.1%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights84.2%
Apr–Jun 202628 flights—

Scale runs 70% 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 77.5% on time across 254 flights.

Quarter by quarter Spirit on SAT to MCO held fairly steady: 80.6% in Jul–Sep 2025, 76.1% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 84.2% in Jan–Mar 2026. A spread of 8 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.8%. 9 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 66% of the 5,346 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.

National Airspace System
66%
Late-arriving aircraft
20%
Carrier
14%
Extreme weather
0%

66% 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 3,504 minutes out of 5,346, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 5,346 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations run at 5.91%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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. 11.0% 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 1,041 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 74.4% on time across 253 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. 254 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 SAT to MCO

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.91% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 236 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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.

Key figures