Carrier route record

NKTPA→IAH

Spirit Airlines · Tampa to Houston

Flights: 151
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 9%
Carriers: 3

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

Spirit on TPA to IAH sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 151 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on TPA to IAH runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 149 completed flights

Avg delay

99 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.32%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.7%

Every carrier on TPA to IAH, 1,650 flights

These figures cover 151 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 TPA to IAH

Spirit flew 151 of the 1,650 flights on TPA to IAH, about 9% of it. Its 73.2% on time is 12 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 87.3% to Frontier at 71.1%. 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 TPA to IAH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,362	87.3%	76 min	0.29%	A+
Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample	151	73.2%	99 min	1.32%	C
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	137	71.1%	101 min	1.46%	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 10 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–8am8 flights—
8am–11am50 flights70.8%
11am–2pm22 flights—
2pm–5pm37 flights81.1%
5pm–8pm28 flights—
8pm–5am6 flights—

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 81.1% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 70.8%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 50 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Spirit on TPA to IAH through the year

Jul–Sep 202589 flights80.9%
Oct–Dec 202554 flights59.6%
Jan–Mar 20268 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 85%. 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 73.2% on time across 151 flights.

Split by quarter, Spirit on TPA to IAH logged 89 flights in Jul–Sep 2025, 54 flights in Oct–Dec 2025 and 8 flights in Jan–Mar 2026. Fewer than three of those quarters carried the 30 completed flights this site needs before printing a rate, so the 73.2% annual figure is the one to use.

Delay causes

Why Spirit runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 3,945 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
47%
Late-arriving aircraft
30%
Carrier
21%
Extreme weather
3%

47% 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 1,846 minutes out of 3,945, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,945 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.32% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

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. 11.4% 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 787 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 runs 72.7% on time across 143 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 151 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 IAH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 151 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 149 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