Route reliability record
DFW→FLL
Dallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 3,143
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,119 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,143 DFW to FLL flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 596 at 72.4% on time.
Best time to fly DFW to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 75.8%, against 69.7% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 76 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,041 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
72.4% on time across 596 flights
These figures cover 3,143 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 DFW to FLL
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 | 311 | 75.8% | 113 min | 2.57% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 596 | 72.4% | 69 min | 5.03% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,031 | 68.3% | 67 min | 2.61% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 205 | 67.5% | 57 min | 1.95% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.0% 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.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas-Fort Worth 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → FLLDallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 68.8% | 72.4% | 5.03% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. DFW → MIADallas-Fort Worth to Miami | American Airlines | 67.1% | 68.7% | 2.37% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → FLLDallas-Fort Worth to Fort Lauderdale | American Airlines | 66.5% | 68.3% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. DFW → PBIDallas-Fort Worth to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 65.6% | 67.5% | 2.81% | 8am–11am, 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 32 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am920 flights82.5%
- 8am–11am403 flights75.2%
- 11am–2pm558 flights68.2%
- 2pm–5pm358 flights55.2%
- 5pm–8pm756 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am148 flights50.3%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.3% on time, against 82.5% 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 920 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW 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 DFW to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 82.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 50.3%, a wide gap of 32.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am82.5%
- 8–11am75.2%
- 11am–2pm68.2%
- 2–5pm55.2%
- 5–8pm63.3%
- 8pm–5am50.3%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 56.1% on time, 22 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.3%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 65,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 65,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 64,787 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 65,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
11.4% 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 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.
The return leg runs 72.1% on time across 3,149 flights, within 2 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 3,143 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 3.02% 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. 3,041 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.3% of the 3,143 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 DFW to FLL?
Spirit Airlines leads at 72.4% on time across 596 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 68.3%, a gap of 4 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 82.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 50.3%, 32 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 DFW to FLL?
July is the weakest month at 56.1% on time, compared with 78.3% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 DFW to FLL75.8%
- Spirit Airlines on DFW to FLL72.4%
- American Airlines on DFW to FLL68.3%
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to FLL67.5%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record68.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.