Carrier route record
NKSJU→PHL
Spirit Airlines · San Juan to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 216
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 11%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on SJU to PHL draws a C−. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 216 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 701 at 79.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on SJU to PHL runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 101 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 200 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
7.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.5%
Every carrier on SJU to PHL, 1,881 flights
These figures cover 216 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 SJU to PHL
Spirit flew 216 of the 1,881 flights on SJU to PHL, about 11% of it. Its 67.5% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 95.8% to Frontier at 61.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 79.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 61.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 867 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 97 | 95.8% | 25 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 701 | 79.4% | 95 min | 2.71% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 216 | 67.5% | 67 min | 7.41% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 867 | 61.0% | 83 min | 3.34% | D− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 29 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am22 flights—
- 11am–2pm59 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm8 flights—
- 5pm–8pm8 flights—
- 8pm–5am119 flights52.4%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.4% on time, against 81.4% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 119 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on SJU to PHL through the year
- Jul–Sep 202573 flights82.2%
- Oct–Dec 202538 flights81.1%
- Jan–Mar 202681 flights52.9%
- Apr–Jun 202624 flights—
Scale runs 45% 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 67.5% on time across 216 flights.
Spirit on SJU to PHL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 82.2% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 52.9%, a swing of 29 points on roughly 72 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.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 61.3%. 23 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 4,358 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,358 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,358 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 7.41%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.5% 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.
At 1,576 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 59.8% on time across 216 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. 216 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 PHL
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 7.41% 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
- SJU to PHL, every carrier
- Spirit on PHL to SJU, the return leg
- American Airlines on SJU to PHL79.4%
- Frontier Airlines on SJU to PHL61.0%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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.