Carrier route record
WNDEN→FLL
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 383
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN to FLL draws a D+. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 383 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on DEN to FLL runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 134 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 380 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on DEN to FLL, 1,578 flights
These figures cover 383 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to FLL
Southwest flew 383 of the 1,578 flights on DEN to FLL, about 24% of it. Its 63.9% on time is 13 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.0% to JetBlue at 61.9%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,173 | 81.0% | 58 min | 0.26% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 383 | 63.9% | 59 min | 0.52% | D+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 22 | 61.9% | 98 min | 4.55% | D− |
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 Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am160 flights75.5%
- 11am–2pm95 flights59.1%
- 2pm–5pm65 flights41.5%
- 5pm–8pm63 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 75.5% of the time, against 41.5% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 160 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to FLL through the year
July is the worst month at 25.8% on time, 59 points below November, the best at 84.8%. 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 42 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 76.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 57.5%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DEN to FLL runs when it is late
The 137 late arrivals split 53 under half an hour, 37 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 47 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early34 flights8.9%
- Within 15 min209 flights55.0%
- 15–29 min late53 flights13.9%
- 30–59 min late37 flights9.7%
- 1–2 hours late31 flights8.2%
- 2+ hours late16 flights4.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 380 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
45 of 163 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. In the other direction, 19 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 Southwest on DEN to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 29 July 2026, 4 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in July 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 29 July 2026 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 June 2026 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 July 2026 | 3 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 July 2026 | 2 hours 58 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 8,086 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,086 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. The split is drawn from 8,086 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,190 of the 8,086 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.52%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
12.4% 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.
At 1,703 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.2% on time across 383 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 383 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 Southwest on DEN to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 383 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 63.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to FLL, every carrier
- Southwest on FLL to DEN, the return leg
- United Airlines on DEN to FLL81.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.