Route reliability record
FLL→IAD
Fort Lauderdale to Washington
- Flights
- 803
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 901 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 803 FLL to IAD flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly FLL to IAD: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 89.8%, against 81.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 41 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 791 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.9% on time across 700 flights
These figures cover 803 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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 IAD
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 700 | 85.9% | 79 min | 0.57% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 103 | 48.4% | 103 min | 6.80% | F− |
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 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. 4 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am194 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm364 flights87.1%
- 2pm–5pm4 flights—
- 5pm–8pm241 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 67.5% for the evening 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to IAD 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 IAD, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.5%, a wide gap of 20.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm87.1%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm67.5%
- 8pm–5am—
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 30 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 63.3% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 93.3%. 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 84 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 21 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 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 19%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
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 12,757 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 901 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 79.0% on time across 802 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 803 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 IAD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 803 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 81.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 791 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to IAD questions
How often is FLL to IAD delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.6% of the 803 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is FLL to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
81.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to IAD?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 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 July delays on FLL to IAD?
July is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 93.3% in September. Across the year that is 30 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
- IAD to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FLL to IAD85.9%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to IAD48.4%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- United Airlines on-time record85.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record48.4%
- 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 IAD and IAD 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.