Route reliability record

FLL→LGA

Fort Lauderdale to New York

Flights: 4,608
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 1,076 mi
Carriers: 4

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three 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 4,608 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,601 at 71.5% on time.

Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 71.5% on time across 1,601 flights.

On time

65.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,382 completed flights

Avg delay

74 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

4.30%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Delta

71.5% on time across 1,601 flights

These figures cover 4,608 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.5% 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 LGA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 71.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 56.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 430 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on FLL to LGA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,601	71.5%	69 min	3.94%	C−
Spirit Airlines	1,036	66.4%	77 min	6.18%	C−
JetBlue Airways	1,541	62.2%	67 min	3.31%	D−
American Airlines	430	56.0%	97 min	4.65%	D−

Spirit Airlines cancels 6.2% 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 34 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am790 flights86.7%
8am–11am447 flights77.1%
11am–2pm970 flights67.0%
2pm–5pm519 flights62.6%
5pm–8pm1,092 flights52.3%
8pm–5am790 flights57.7%

Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.3% on time, against 86.7% 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.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 36 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 81.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 53.9%. 22 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 110,000 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
34%
Carrier
24%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

34% 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 110,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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.

38% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 42,000 minutes out of 110,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations run at 4.30%, against 1.80% 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. 14.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 1,076 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 68.0% on time across 4,610 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.

The sample behind these figures is 4,608 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 4.30% 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.

Common questions

FLL to LGA questions

How often is FLL to LGA delayed?

About 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 34.2% of the 4,608 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on FLL to LGA?

Delta Air Lines leads at 71.5% on time across 1,601 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 56.0%, a gap of 16 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 LGA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.3%, 34 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 LGA?

March is the weakest month at 45.8% on time, compared with 81.9% in September. Across the year that is 36 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 LGA and LGA 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures