Carrier route record
B6DCA→FLL
JetBlue Airways · Washington to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,361
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DCA to FLL 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 a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,361 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 576 at 72.7% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so JetBlue on DCA to FLL runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 89 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,323 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.42%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
68.3%
Every carrier on DCA to FLL, 2,302 flights
These figures cover 1,361 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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
JetBlue against every carrier on DCA to FLL
JetBlue flew 1,361 of the 2,302 flights on DCA to FLL, most of the route. Its 68.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 68.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 72.7% to Southwest at 59.9%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 72.7% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 59.9%. 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 | 576 | 72.7% | 66 min | 1.39% | C |
| JetBlue Airways (this page) | 1,361 | 68.7% | 78 min | 2.42% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 59.9% | 57 min | 1.37% | D |
The spread between American and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
JetBlue flight numbers on DCA to FLL
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am358 flights78.1%
- 8am–11am190 flights77.2%
- 11am–2pm188 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm239 flights59.9%
- 5pm–8pm211 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am175 flights58.2%
Scale runs 50% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 78.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on DCA to FLL through the year
December is the weak month at 61.2% on time, against 83.9% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. December was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.5%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 32,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 32,438 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 78.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
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. 12.9% 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 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. 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 68.6% on time across 1,362 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 1,361 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.
What to do with this
Booking JetBlue on DCA to FLL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 83.9% on time and December 61.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,323 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to FLL, every carrier
- JetBlue on FLL to DCA, the return leg
- American Airlines on DCA to FLL72.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to FLL59.9%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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.