Route reliability record
FLL→DEN
Fort Lauderdale to Denver
- Flights
- 1,579
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,703 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,579 FLL to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,174 at 87.9% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.2% of the time and Thursday flights 88.8%, against 83.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,567 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.9% on time across 1,174 flights
These figures cover 1,579 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 87.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 68.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 383 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,174 | 87.9% | 106 min | 0.17% | A+ |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 22 | 76.2% | 101 min | 4.55% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 383 | 68.2% | 51 min | 0.00% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 20 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 20 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Denver
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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → DENFort Lauderdale to Denver | United Airlines | 87.8% | 87.9% | 0.17% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. MIA → DENMiami to Denver | United Airlines | 82.9% | 83.0% | 0.11% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. MIA → DENMiami to Denver | American Airlines | 75.4% | 76.1% | 0.90% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. FLL → DENFort Lauderdale to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 68.2% | 68.2% | 0.00% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 20 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am206 flights92.2%
- 8am–11am466 flights92.2%
- 11am–2pm304 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm532 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm9 flights—
- 8pm–5am62 flights78.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.2% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 532 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to DEN 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 DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 20.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.2%
- 8–11am92.2%
- 11am–2pm83.1%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am78.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
June is the worst month at 74.7% on time, 16 points below November, the best at 90.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 203 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.8%, 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 22,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 21,610 reported delay minutes.
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations are rare at 0.19%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,703 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.6% on time across 1,578 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,579 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 DEN 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. November runs 90.5% on time and June 74.7%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,567 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to DEN questions
How often is FLL to DEN delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.0% of the 1,579 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 DEN?
United Airlines leads at 87.9% on time across 1,174 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 68.2%, 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 DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 20 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 June delays on FLL to DEN?
June is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 90.5% in November. Across the year that is 16 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
- DEN to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FLL to DEN87.9%
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to DEN68.2%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- United Airlines on-time record87.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. FLL to DEN and DEN 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.