Carrier route record
DLFLL→JFK
Delta Air Lines · Fort Lauderdale to New York
- Flights
- 1,615
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on FLL to JFK carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,615 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on FLL to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,550 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.65%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on FLL to JFK, 3,877 flights
These figures cover 1,615 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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
Delta against every carrier on FLL to JFK
Delta flew 1,615 of the 3,877 flights on FLL to JFK, about 42% of it. Its 76.4% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 76.4% to JetBlue at 65.7%.
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 (this page) | 1,615 | 76.4% | 85 min | 3.65% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,262 | 65.7% | 72 min | 3.93% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on FLL to JFK
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 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–8am365 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am178 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm366 flights73.0%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm143 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am199 flights59.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 91.7% 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 366 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on FLL to JFK through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 84.2% 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 155 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 12,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 31,162 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 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.65%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% 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 76.5% on time across 1,614 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 1,615 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 Delta on FLL to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.65% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 1,550 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- FLL to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to FLL, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to JFK65.7%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.