Route reliability record
FLL→ATL
Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta
- Flights
- 7,366
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 7,366 FLL to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 4,379 at 78.5% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.0%, against 71.0% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 78.5% on time across 4,379 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 7,166 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.5% on time across 4,379 flights
These figures cover 7,366 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 FLL to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.5% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 57.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 887 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 4,379 | 78.5% | 73 min | 1.92% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,007 | 63.7% | 91 min | 3.18% | D− |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,093 | 58.6% | 68 min | 4.12% | D− |
| JetBlue Airways | 887 | 57.1% | 68 min | 3.38% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.1% 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 FLL to ATL
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.
- Delta 121506:3093.9% · 365 flights
- Delta 132607:4088.7% · 356 flights
- Delta 234518:3065.9% · 345 flights
- Delta 116805:2596.7% · 337 flights
- Delta 127112:2876.2% · 334 flights
- Delta 109411:2580.9% · 318 flights
- Delta 151213:3578.3% · 305 flights
- JetBlue 179820:0048.1% · 304 flights
- Delta 134115:3068.8% · 303 flights
- JetBlue 169809:0073.4% · 289 flights
- Frontier 217306:0080.5% · 278 flights
- Delta 141316:2061.4% · 257 flights
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 Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta
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. PBI → ATLWest Palm Beach to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 82.3% | 83.6% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | DL 1376 06:00 |
| 2. FLL → ATLFort Lauderdale to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 77.0% | 78.5% | 1.92% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1168 05:25 |
| 3. MIA → ATLMiami to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 76.4% | 77.8% | 1.78% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1261 06:00 |
| 4. MIA → ATLMiami to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 68.4% | 69.7% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 2483 05:05 |
| 5. MIA → ATLMiami to Atlanta | American Airlines | 67.6% | 68.0% | 0.64% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 34 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,392 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am1,126 flights79.2%
- 11am–2pm1,279 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,024 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,591 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am954 flights56.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.8% on time, against 90.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,591 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to ATL 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 FLL to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.8%, a wide gap of 33.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am79.2%
- 11am–2pm75.8%
- 2–5pm61.9%
- 5–8pm58.4%
- 8pm–5am56.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% 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.
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. March was the busiest month here, with 782 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.6%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 154,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%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 154,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 154,218 reported delay minutes.
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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.59%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
12.1% 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 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.
The return leg runs 70.7% on time across 7,371 flights, within half 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 7,366 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 ATL after this flight
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. 7,166 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to ATL questions
How often is FLL to ATL 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 29.0% of the 7,366 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 FLL to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.5% on time across 4,379 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 57.1%, a gap of 21 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 90.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.8%, 34 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 FLL to ATL78.5%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to ATL63.7%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to ATL58.6%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to ATL57.1%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- FLL to EWR, a related route71.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record63.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record58.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.