Flight profile · Spirit Airlines
NK1
Fort Lauderdale (FLL) to Chicago (ORD) · scheduled 7:00 AM – 9:45 AM
How NK1 performs
621 operations, July 2023 – May 2026.
NK1 arrived on time 67.4% of the time, against 71.0% for all FLL → ORD flights, so this departure is 3.6 percentage points worse than the route as a whole. Against Spirit Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 4.8 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 621 operations, July 2023 – May 2026 · If NK1 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where NK1 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NK1 | 67.4% | 1.61% | 3 min | 9.4% | 621 |
| Spirit Airlines on FLL → ORD | 62.6% | 1.51% | 3 min | 14.8% | 3,442 |
| All FLL → ORD flights | 71.0% | 1.45% | -3 min | 11.4% | 9,569 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – May 2026
Why NK1 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
screening or terminal security incidents
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for NK1 on FLL → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – May 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies NK1 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
NK1 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.3 hours on the ground at FLL, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, NK1 pushed back an average of 22 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 8 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into FLL just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 520 of 612 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| NK1 | 42% | 36% | 18% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often NK1’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often NK1 left 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – May 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves FLL late, does that still matter by the time it reaches ORD?
NK1 pushes back an average of 17.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at ORD an average of 15.0 minutes late. The 2.1 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 15.1 minutes on the taxiways at FLL, 1.2 minutes shorter than a typical FLL departure in the same hour.
On arrival at ORD, NK1 spends 16.1 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 1.7 minutes shorter than a typical ORD arrival (17.8 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached ORD. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 27,015 departures from FLL scheduled in the clock hour NK1 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at ORD (952,666 flights), not just NK1’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – May 2026
The hour it leaves FLL
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. NK1 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 27,015 departures from FLL are scheduled in the 7 AM–8 AM hour over the period, against 278,691 across the whole day.
NK1 is scheduled out of FLL at 7:00 AM, in the 7 AM–8 AM bank. Departures from FLL in that hour arrive on time 88.2% of the time against 72.6% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 15.6 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from FLL to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – May 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes NK1 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route NK1 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
53 min late
against a median of 3 min late
Percentiles over 621 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – May 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UA1755 | United Airlines | 86.0% | 9 min early | 890 |
| NK1 this flight | Spirit Airlines | 67.4% | 3 min late | 621 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. NK1 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 621 records of NK1 operating FLL → ORD, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed