Carrier route record
B6DCA→FLL
JetBlue Airways · Washington to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,380
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on DCA to FLL carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,380 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 575 at 72.1% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so JetBlue on DCA to FLL runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 92 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,327 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
67.7%
Every carrier on DCA to FLL, 2,320 flights
These figures cover 1,380 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
JetBlue against every carrier on DCA to FLL
JetBlue flew 1,380 of the 2,320 flights on DCA to FLL, most of the route. Its 68.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 67.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 72.1% to Southwest at 59.5%.
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 (this page) | 1,380 | 68.1% | 80 min | 3.48% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 59.5% | 64 min | 1.64% | 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
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 27 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am389 flights78.6%
- 8am–11am150 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm195 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm300 flights54.3%
- 5pm–8pm149 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am197 flights56.7%
Scale runs 45% to 85%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.3% of the time, against 54.3% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 389 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on DCA to FLL through the year
July is the worst month at 57.4% on time, 27 points below May, the best at 83.9%. 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 131 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.9%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late JetBlue on DCA to FLL runs when it is late
The 423 late arrivals split 113 under half an hour, 119 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 191 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early316 flights23.8%
- Within 15 min588 flights44.3%
- 15–29 min late113 flights8.5%
- 30–59 min late119 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late103 flights7.8%
- 2+ hours late88 flights6.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,327 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
60 of 399 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 84 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for JetBlue on DCA to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 March 2026, 8 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 March 2026 | 8 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 June 2026 | 6 hours 43 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 November 2025 | 6 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 4 November 2025 | 6 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. The split is drawn from 33,801 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 81.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.48%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 costs
14.4% 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 69.2% on time across 1,381 flights, within about 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 1,380 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.48% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,327 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 FLL72.1%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to FLL59.5%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.