Route reliability record
FLL→LAX
Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 2,275
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,343 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,275 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,253 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
JetBlue
76.0% on time across 1,749 flights
These figures cover 2,275 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to LAX
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 Linesthin sample | 363 | 85.8% | 96 min | 1.10% | A |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,749 | 76.0% | 58 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 163 | 61.2% | 61 min | 1.84% | D |
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 22 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–8am560 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am547 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm245 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm130 flights66.9%
- 5pm–8pm389 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am404 flights64.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 86.3% 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 560 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 236 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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 32,763 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 86.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,343 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 runs 74.0% on time across 2,275 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 2,275 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.3% on time and May 70.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 2,253 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to LAX questions
How often is FLL to LAX delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.5% of the 2,275 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is FLL to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
76.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to LAX?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.6%, 22 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 May delays on FLL to LAX?
May is the weakest month at 70.1% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- LAX to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record85.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record61.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. FLL to LAX and LAX 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.