Carrier route record
DLCVG→FLL
Delta Air Lines · Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 533
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on CVG to FLL lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five 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 533 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on CVG to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 525 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on CVG to FLL, 987 flights
These figures cover 533 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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
Delta against every carrier on CVG to FLL
Delta flew 533 of the 987 flights on CVG to FLL, most of the route. Its 78.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 78.3% to Allegiant at 72.7%. 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 (this page) | 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
Delta flight numbers on CVG to FLL
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 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–8am198 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am37 flights59.5%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm298 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.1% of the time, against 59.5% for the morning window. That is 29 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 298 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on CVG to FLL through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 88.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.7%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 8,270 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,459 of the 8,270 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,270 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 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.2% 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 72.7% on time across 533 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 533 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 Delta on CVG to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 533 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 525 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CVG to FLL, every carrier
- Delta on FLL to CVG, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to FLL75.9%
- Allegiant Air on CVG to FLL72.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.