Carrier route record
NKTPA→ORD
Spirit Airlines · Tampa to Chicago
- Flights
- 281
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Spirit Airlines.
Spirit on TPA to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 281 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,403 at 75.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Spirit on TPA to ORD runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 85 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 272 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on TPA to ORD, 3,214 flights
These figures cover 281 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 ORD
Spirit flew 281 of the 3,214 flights on TPA to ORD, about 9% of it. Its 69.1% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Frontier at 62.3%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,403 | 75.0% | 75 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,140 | 73.2% | 96 min | 1.93% | C |
| Spirit Airlines (this page)thin sample | 281 | 69.1% | 87 min | 3.20% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 68.1% | 57 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 62.3% | 139 min | 5.20% | D− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 75.0%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 40 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am113 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm45 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm111 flights47.6%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 47.6% for the afternoon window. That is 40 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 113 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Spirit on TPA to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202591 flights85.7%
- Oct–Dec 202573 flights78.9%
- Jan–Mar 202688 flights46.3%
- Apr–Jun 202629 flights—
Scale runs 40% 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 69.1% on time across 281 flights.
Spirit on TPA to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 46.3%, a swing of 39 points on roughly 94 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 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.4%. 26 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 49% of the 7,295 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.
- 49%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
49% 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 3,555 minutes out of 7,295, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 7,295 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.20%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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. 14.3% 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 1,012 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 71.3% on time across 283 flights, within 2 points 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. 281 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 ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.20% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 272 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to ORD, every carrier
- Spirit on ORD to TPA, the return leg
- United Airlines on TPA to ORD75.0%
- American Airlines on TPA to ORD73.2%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to ORD68.1%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to ORD62.3%
- Spirit Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.