Route reliability record
FLL→CVG
Fort Lauderdale to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 987
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 932 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 987 FLL to CVG flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly FLL to CVG: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 82.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.4%, against 71.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 62 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 973 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
72.7% on time across 533 flights
These figures cover 987 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 CVG
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 533 | 72.7% | 78 min | 1.31% | C |
| Allegiant Airthin sample | 258 | 70.0% | 89 min | 0.39% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 196 | 69.9% | 111 min | 1.53% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on FLL to CVG
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Cincinnati
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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MIA → CVGMiami to Cincinnati | Envoy Air | 78.2% | 78.7% | 0.64% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. FLL → CVGFort Lauderdale to Cincinnati | Delta Air Lines | 71.7% | 72.7% | 1.31% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 661 17:59 |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am14 flights—
- 8am–11am126 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm295 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm56 flights52.7%
- 5pm–8pm410 flights66.8%
- 8pm–5am86 flights61.0%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 82.5% of the time, against 52.7% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 84.3% 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 114 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.9%. 23 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 61% of the 24,000 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
61% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 21 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 split is drawn from 24,404 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 82.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
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. 12.1% 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 932 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.3% on time across 987 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 987 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CVG after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 987 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 71.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 973 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to CVG questions
How often is FLL to CVG 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 28.6% of the 987 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is FLL to CVG compared with the rest of the country?
71.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to CVG?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 82.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 52.7%, 30 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 CVG?
March is the weakest month at 51.4% on time, compared with 84.3% in October. Across the year that is 33 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
- CVG to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on FLL to CVG72.7%
- Allegiant Air on FLL to CVG70.0%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to CVG69.9%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.8%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.2%
- FLL to EWR, a related route70.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.7%
- Allegiant Air on-time record70.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. FLL to CVG and CVG 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.