Route reliability record
DCA→FLL
Washington to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,320
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 899 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,320 DCA to FLL flights, of which American Airlines flew 575 at 72.1% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.3% of the time and Saturday flights 77.4%, against 67.7% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 72.1% on time across 575 flights.
Key figures
On time
67.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,248 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
72.1% on time across 575 flights
These figures cover 2,320 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 72.1% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 365 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 575 | 72.1% | 67 min | 1.91% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,380 | 68.1% | 80 min | 3.48% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 59.5% | 64 min | 1.64% | D |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → FLLWashington to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 83.0% | 83.5% | 0.57% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 1825 08:15 |
| 2. BWI → MIABaltimore to Miami | American Airlines | 78.8% | 80.6% | 2.29% | 5am–8am, Thu | AA 1183 06:00 |
| 3. BWI → PBIBaltimore to West Palm Beach | Southwest Airlines | 77.3% | 78.5% | 1.58% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. DCA → MIAWashington to Miami | American Airlines | 75.9% | 77.7% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → PBIWashington to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 75.4% | 76.8% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am412 flights79.3%
- 8am–11am514 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm264 flights75.7%
- 2pm–5pm627 flights57.1%
- 5pm–8pm302 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am201 flights55.5%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.5% on time, against 79.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 627 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA to FLL by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DCA to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 79.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.5%, a wide gap of 23.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am79.3%
- 8–11am78.0%
- 11am–2pm75.7%
- 2–5pm57.1%
- 5–8pm58.4%
- 8pm–5am55.5%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
July is the worst month at 59.8% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 75.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 233 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.3%, a spread of 21 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 to one. The split is drawn from 53,460 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 79.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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 actually costs
13.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 899 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.
The return leg runs 67.8% on time across 2,320 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,320 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in FLL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.80% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,248 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to FLL questions
How often is DCA to FLL delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.3% of the 2,320 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to FLL?
American Airlines leads at 72.1% on time across 575 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 59.5%, a gap of 13 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 79.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.5%, 24 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 July delays on DCA to FLL?
July is the weakest month at 59.8% on time, compared with 75.0% in September. Across the year that is 15 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 DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DCA to FLL72.1%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to FLL68.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to FLL59.5%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- American Airlines on-time record72.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record59.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. DCA to FLL and FLL to DCA 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.