Route reliability record
CVG→FLL
Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 987
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 932 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 987 CVG to FLL flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly CVG to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.7%, against 76.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 972 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
78.3% on time across 533 flights
These figures cover 987 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on CVG to FLL
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 | 533 | 78.3% | 73 min | 1.31% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 196 | 75.9% | 89 min | 1.53% | B |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 258 | 72.7% | 62 min | 0.39% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG to FLL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CVG → MIACincinnati to Miami | Envoy Air | 81.7% | 82.2% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Sat | MQ 3638 08:41 |
| 2. CVG → FLLCincinnati to Fort Lauderdale | Delta Air Lines | 77.3% | 78.3% | 1.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 661 16:32 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 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–8am303 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am118 flights73.3%
- 11am–2pm61 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm445 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm53 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am7 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 69.2% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 445 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.3% 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 114 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.3%. 20 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 16,656 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 87.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 932 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 71.4% on time across 987 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 987 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in FLL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 987 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 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 972 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to FLL questions
How often is CVG to FLL delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.7% of the 987 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CVG to FLL compared with the rest of the country?
76.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CVG to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.2%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on CVG to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 60.4% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 29 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on CVG to FLL78.3%
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to FLL75.9%
- Allegiant Air on CVG to FLL72.7%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.2%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- CVG to ATL, a related route86.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.9%
- Allegiant Air on-time record72.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CVG to FLL and FLL to CVG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.