Route reliability record
FLL→DCA
Fort Lauderdale to Washington
- Flights
- 2,320
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 899 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 2,320 FLL to DCA flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 1,381 at 69.2% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 75.3%, against 67.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
67.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,250 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
69.2% on time across 1,381 flights
These figures cover 2,320 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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 DCA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 1,381 | 69.2% | 73 min | 2.97% | C |
| American Airlines | 575 | 65.8% | 82 min | 2.43% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 65.5% | 60 min | 0.82% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. JetBlue tops the table at 69.2%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on FLL to DCA
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 Fort Lauderdale to Washington
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. 5 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → IADFort Lauderdale to Washington | United Airlines | 85.4% | 85.9% | 0.57% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. PBI → BWIWest Palm Beach to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.2% | 1.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MIA → DCAMiami to Washington | American Airlines | 74.0% | 75.7% | 2.22% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2648 19:17 |
| 4. MIA → BWIMiami to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 72.1% | 73.6% | 2.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. FLL → BWIFort Lauderdale to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 71.9% | 73.5% | 2.18% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 38 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am304 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am256 flights75.7%
- 11am–2pm610 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm306 flights66.2%
- 5pm–8pm454 flights54.5%
- 8pm–5am390 flights56.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.5% on time, against 92.2% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 610 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to DCA 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 DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.5%, a wide gap of 37.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am75.7%
- 11am–2pm70.0%
- 2–5pm66.2%
- 5–8pm54.5%
- 8pm–5am56.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 56.8% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 79.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 233 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 53,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 25%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. Across 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 52,964 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 92.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.50%, 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
12.5% 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 899 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 67.7% on time across 2,320 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 2,320 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 DCA 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 79.7% on time and July 56.8%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,250 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to DCA questions
How often is FLL to DCA delayed?
About 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 32.2% of the 2,320 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 DCA?
JetBlue Airways leads at 69.2% on time across 1,381 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.8%, a gap of 3 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 DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.5%, 38 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 July delays on FLL to DCA?
July is the weakest month at 56.8% on time, compared with 79.7% in September. Across the year that is 23 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
- DCA to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to DCA69.2%
- American Airlines on FLL to DCA65.8%
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to DCA65.5%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record69.2%
- American Airlines on-time record65.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record65.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. FLL to DCA and DCA 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.