Carrier route record
DLDTW→FLL
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,808
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,808 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,776 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.5%
Every carrier on DTW to FLL, 2,692 flights
These figures cover 1,808 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to FLL
Delta flew 1,808 of the 2,692 flights on DTW to FLL, most of the route. Its 73.6% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 77.2% to Frontier at 59.7%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 107 | 77.2% | 95 min | 4.67% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,808 | 73.6% | 69 min | 1.66% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 630 | 66.8% | 68 min | 3.17% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 147 | 59.7% | 61 min | 5.44% | D− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to FLL
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am340 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm352 flights76.7%
- 2pm–5pm335 flights68.5%
- 5pm–8pm145 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am271 flights54.3%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.3% on time, against 86.6% 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 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to FLL through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 89.1% 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 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.9%, a spread of 19 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on DTW to FLL runs when it is late
The 468 late arrivals split 154 under half an hour, 136 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 178 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early377 flights21.2%
- Within 15 min931 flights52.4%
- 15–29 min late154 flights8.7%
- 30–59 min late136 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late110 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late68 flights3.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,776 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
62 of 390 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. In the other direction, 140 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 Delta on DTW to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 23 December 2025, 15 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 23 December 2025 | 15 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 November 2025 | 9 hours 14 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 March 2026 | 7 hours | National Airspace System |
| 30 December 2025 | 6 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 January 2026 | 6 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 32,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 32,036 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.0% 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 1,127 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.6% on time across 1,810 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,808 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 Delta on DTW to FLL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 89.1% on time and March 59.7%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,776 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to FLL, every carrier
- Delta on FLL to DTW, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on DTW to FLL77.2%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to FLL66.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to FLL59.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.