Route reliability record
FLL→ATL
Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta
- Flights
- 7,168
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 581 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 7,168 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 4,252 at 77.6% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.6% on time across 4,252 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,989 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.27%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
77.6% on time across 4,252 flights
These figures cover 7,168 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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 FLL to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 77.6% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 57.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 557 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,252 | 77.6% | 75 min | 1.65% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 889 | 63.8% | 78 min | 2.92% | D |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,470 | 60.7% | 68 min | 3.27% | D− |
| JetBlue Airways | 557 | 57.5% | 63 min | 3.41% | D− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.4% 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 31 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,338 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am1,138 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm1,333 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm951 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,614 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am794 flights58.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 89.1% 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.
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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 83.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.4%. 21 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 147,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 147,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.27% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
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. 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 581 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 68.9% on time across 7,174 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 7,168 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 83.4% on time and March 58.7%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else.
Common questions
FLL to ATL questions
How often is FLL to ATL 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 29.1% of the 7,168 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.6% on time across 4,252 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 57.5%, a gap of 20 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 FLL to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.0%, 31 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 FLL to ATL?
March is the weakest month at 58.7% on time, compared with 83.4% in September. 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
- ATL to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record63.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record60.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. FLL to ATL and ATL to FLL 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.