Carrier route record
NKTPA→DTW
Spirit Airlines · Tampa to Detroit
- Flights
- 522
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on TPA to DTW lands a B−, about a point 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 522 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Spirit on TPA to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 501 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.02%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on TPA to DTW, 2,371 flights
These figures cover 522 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 TPA to DTW
Spirit flew 522 of the 2,371 flights on TPA to DTW, about 22% of it. Its 78.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 82.4% to Southwest at 40.0%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,715 | 82.4% | 75 min | 1.28% | B |
| Spirit Airlines (this page) | 522 | 78.8% | 60 min | 4.02% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 129 | 75.0% | 74 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 40.0% | 34 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am243 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am73 flights72.7%
- 11am–2pm79 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm27 flights—
- 5pm–8pm15 flights—
- 8pm–5am85 flights74.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 68.4% on time against 87.7% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 243 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on TPA to DTW through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 71 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.8%. 18 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 43% of the 6,358 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
43% 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 6,358 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 6,358 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 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
7.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 983 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 74.7% on time across 521 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 522 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 TPA to DTW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 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. 501 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to DTW, every carrier
- Spirit on DTW to TPA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to DTW82.4%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to DTW75.0%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.