Route reliability record

FLL→JFK

Fort Lauderdale to New York

Flights: 3,877
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,069 mi
Carriers: 2

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,877 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,615 at 76.4% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 74 extra late arrivals.

On time

70.2%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,719 completed flights

Avg delay

76 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.82%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

76.4% on time across 1,615 flights

These figures cover 3,877 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 JFK

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 76.4% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 65.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,262 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on FLL to JFK
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,615	76.4%	85 min	3.65%	B−
JetBlue Airways	2,262	65.7%	72 min	3.93%	C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 3.9% 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.

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 37 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am757 flights91.6%
8am–11am473 flights77.1%
11am–2pm730 flights71.7%
2pm–5pm597 flights67.5%
5pm–8pm701 flights56.8%
8pm–5am619 flights54.1%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.1% on time, against 91.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 757 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 28 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, March worst

September is the best month on the calendar at 85.2% 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 386 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 75.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.6%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 84,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
35%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
30%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

35% 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 84,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 84,462 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 91.6% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.82%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.2% 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 1,069 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 runs 72.7% on time across 3,884 flights, within 3 points 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 3,877 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.

What to do with this

Booking this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,719 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

FLL to JFK questions

How often is FLL to JFK delayed?

Roughly one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.8% of the 3,877 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on FLL to JFK?

Delta Air Lines leads at 76.4% on time across 1,615 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 65.7%, a gap of 11 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 JFK?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.1%, 37 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 JFK?

March is the weakest month at 57.3% on time, compared with 85.2% in September. Across the year that is 28 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. FLL to JFK and JFK to FLL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures