Carrier route record
NKSJU→ORD
Spirit Airlines · San Juan to Chicago
- Flights
- 227
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 16%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on SJU to ORD lands a B−, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 227 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 657 at 80.5% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Spirit on SJU to ORD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 207 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.93%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on SJU to ORD, 1,383 flights
These figures cover 227 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Spirit against every carrier on SJU to ORD
Spirit flew 227 of the 1,383 flights on SJU to ORD, about 16% of it. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 80.5% to Frontier at 65.2%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 657 | 80.5% | 43 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 227 | 77.8% | 82 min | 7.93% | B− |
| American Airlines | 426 | 77.3% | 101 min | 2.11% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 73 | 65.2% | 115 min | 2.74% | C |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 80.5%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 30 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am4 flights—
- 11am–2pm104 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm29 flights—
- 5pm–8pm30 flights100.0%
- 8pm–5am60 flights69.6%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 100.0% on time. The full set of windows spans 30 points.
Across the year
Spirit on SJU to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202519 flights—
- Oct–Dec 202557 flights72.7%
- Jan–Mar 2026107 flights74.2%
- Apr–Jun 202644 flights82.9%
Scale runs 65% 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 77.8% on time across 227 flights.
Spirit on SJU to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.7%, a swing of 10 points on roughly 76 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Arrival by arrival
How late Spirit on SJU to ORD runs when it is late
Spirit on SJU to ORD often beats the schedule: 87 of 207 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 46 late arrivals split 12 under half an hour, 15 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 19 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early87 flights42.0%
- Within 15 min74 flights35.7%
- 15–29 min late12 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late15 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late9 flights4.3%
- 2+ hours late10 flights4.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 207 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
15 of 51 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 29% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Spirit on SJU to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 December 2025, 5 hours 18 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Four of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 December 2025 | 5 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 December 2025 | 4 hours 59 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 December 2025 | 4 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 December 2025 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 February 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | National Airspace System |
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 3,750 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
37% 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 1,371 minutes out of 3,750, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,750 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 7.93%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twelve 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
9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 2,072 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 60.8% on time across 232 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 227 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 SJU to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5pm–8pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 207 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SJU to ORD, every carrier
- Spirit on ORD to SJU, the return leg
- United Airlines on SJU to ORD80.5%
- American Airlines on SJU to ORD77.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) 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.