Route reliability record
EWR→FLL
Newark to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 4,671
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,065 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,671 EWR to FLL flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,723 at 78.2% on time.
Best time to fly EWR to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.6%, against 75.3% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.2% on time across 2,723 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,475 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.2% on time across 2,723 flights
These figures cover 4,671 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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 EWR to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.2% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 69.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 888 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,723 | 78.2% | 71 min | 2.53% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,060 | 72.2% | 82 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 888 | 69.6% | 78 min | 7.88% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 7.9% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on EWR to FLL
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Newark 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → MIANewark to Miami | American Airlines | 78.6% | 81.3% | 3.29% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1196 05:40 |
| 2. EWR → PBINewark to West Palm Beach | United Airlines | 77.7% | 79.4% | 2.10% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1771 06:30 |
| 3. JFK → PBINew York to West Palm Beach | Delta Air Lines | 77.1% | 80.9% | 4.65% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2018 07:00 |
| 4. EWR → FLLNewark to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 76.2% | 78.2% | 2.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1364 07:00 |
| 5. EWR → MIANewark to Miami | United Airlines | 75.2% | 77.1% | 2.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2295 11:31 |
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 24 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,004 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am729 flights76.0%
- 11am–2pm894 flights75.7%
- 2pm–5pm562 flights70.4%
- 5pm–8pm942 flights68.7%
- 8pm–5am540 flights64.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 88.8% 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 1,004 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter EWR 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 EWR to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.9%, a wide gap of 23.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.8%
- 8–11am76.0%
- 11am–2pm75.7%
- 2–5pm70.4%
- 5–8pm68.7%
- 8pm–5am64.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 65.8% on time, against 90.3% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 500 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.6%, a spread of 17 points.
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 83,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 83,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 83,195 reported delay minutes.
35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 29,000 minutes out of 83,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.02%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
10.2% 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 1,065 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 71.1% on time across 4,666 flights, 4 points below 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.
The sample behind these figures is 4,671 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 4.02% 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. 4,475 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EWR to FLL questions
How often is EWR to FLL delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.7% of the 4,671 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 EWR to FLL?
United Airlines leads at 78.2% on time across 2,723 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 69.6%, a gap of 9 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 EWR to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.9%, 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 December delays on EWR to FLL?
December is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 90.3% in June. Across the year that is 25 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 EWR — the return legseparate record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- United Airlines on EWR to FLL78.2%
- JetBlue Airways on EWR to FLL72.2%
- Spirit Airlines on EWR to FLL69.6%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- EWR to ATL, a related route76.9%
- United Airlines on-time record78.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record72.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record69.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EWR to FLL and FLL to EWR 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.