Route reliability record
DTW→FLL
Detroit to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,706
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,127 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,706 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,815 at 74.2% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 52 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,649 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
74.2% on time across 1,815 flights
These figures cover 2,706 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 DTW 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,815 | 74.2% | 70 min | 1.43% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 802 | 70.0% | 72 min | 2.49% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 89 | 56.5% | 69 min | 4.49% | D− |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 74.2%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 24 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am717 flights83.2%
- 8am–11am467 flights74.1%
- 11am–2pm364 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm459 flights64.6%
- 5pm–8pm391 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am308 flights58.8%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 83.2% 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 717 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 36 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.2% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 328 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.1%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 42% of the 51,000 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.
- 42%Carrier
- 32%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 51,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 51,423 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
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. 10.8% 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 1,127 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 73.2% on time across 2,719 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 2,706 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.2% on time and March 53.3%, a swing of 36 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,649 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to FLL questions
How often is DTW to FLL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.6% of the 2,706 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 DTW to FLL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 74.2% on time across 1,815 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 70.0%, 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 DTW to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 83.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.8%, 24 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 March delays on DTW to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 53.3% on time, compared with 89.2% in September. Across the year that is 36 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record74.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record56.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. DTW to FLL and FLL to DTW 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.