Route reliability record
DFW→FLL
Dallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,985
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,119 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% 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 2,985 flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 723 at 73.5% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,877 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.45%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Spirit
73.5% on time across 723 flights
These figures cover 2,985 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to FLL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 133 | 77.3% | 143 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 723 | 73.5% | 70 min | 4.43% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 143 | 69.8% | 51 min | 2.80% | C |
| American Airlines | 1,986 | 68.6% | 71 min | 3.32% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.4% 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.
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 30 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am907 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am401 flights74.0%
- 11am–2pm440 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm285 flights57.1%
- 5pm–8pm806 flights62.7%
- 8pm–5am146 flights52.5%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.5% on time, against 82.2% 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 907 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
June is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 78.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 346 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 74.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 62,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 62,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 61,768 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 22,000 of the 62,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.45%, against 1.81% 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.5% 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 1,119 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 72.7% on time across 2,984 flights, within 3 points 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 2,985 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 this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.45% 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. 2,877 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to FLL questions
How often is DFW to FLL delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.8% of the 2,985 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to FLL?
Spirit Airlines leads at 73.5% on time across 723 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 68.6%, a gap of 5 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 DFW to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 82.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 52.5%, 30 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 June delays on DFW to FLL?
June is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 78.3% in February. Across the year that is 19 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on-time record77.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record73.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to FLL and FLL to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.