Route reliability record
FLL→ORD
Fort Lauderdale to Chicago
- Flights
- 3,518
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,182 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 3,518 FLL to ORD flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,524 at 74.6% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 74.4%, against 68.7% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 74.6% on time across 1,524 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,428 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
74.6% on time across 1,524 flights
These figures cover 3,518 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 74.6% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 57.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 775 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,524 | 74.6% | 78 min | 0.72% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 865 | 69.8% | 99 min | 1.50% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 213 | 67.8% | 138 min | 2.35% | C |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 108 | 62.6% | 72 min | 4.63% | D− |
| Spirit Airlines | 775 | 57.7% | 73 min | 3.48% | D− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 33 | 38.7% | 98 min | 3.03% | F− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on FLL to ORD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Chicago
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 → ORDFort Lauderdale to Chicago | United Airlines | 74.1% | 74.6% | 0.72% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1755 12:26 |
| 2. MIA → ORDMiami to Chicago | American Airlines | 71.2% | 72.5% | 1.74% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. FLL → MDWFort Lauderdale to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 70.7% | 71.7% | 1.34% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. MIA → ORDMiami to Chicago | United Airlines | 69.0% | 69.7% | 1.01% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 1983 12:30 |
| 5. PBI → ORDWest Palm Beach to Chicago | American Airlines | 69.0% | 70.8% | 2.55% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 33 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am506 flights85.8%
- 8am–11am517 flights81.1%
- 11am–2pm855 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm676 flights55.0%
- 5pm–8pm626 flights53.0%
- 8pm–5am338 flights53.3%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.0% on time, against 85.8% 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 855 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 53.0%, a wide gap of 32.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.8%
- 8–11am81.1%
- 11am–2pm78.9%
- 2–5pm55.0%
- 5–8pm53.0%
- 8pm–5am53.3%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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 84.9% 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 440 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.1%, a spread of 12 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 92,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%National Airspace System
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 34,000 minutes out of 92,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 91,876 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 85.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.80%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
13.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,182 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 70.8% on time across 3,517 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 3,518 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ORD after this flight
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 84.9% on time and March 51.8%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,428 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to ORD questions
How often is FLL to ORD delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.3% of the 3,518 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to ORD?
United Airlines leads at 74.6% on time across 1,524 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 57.7%, a gap of 17 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 ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.0%, 33 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 ORD?
March is the weakest month at 51.8% on time, compared with 84.9% in September. Across the year that is 33 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
- ORD to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FLL to ORD74.6%
- American Airlines on FLL to ORD69.8%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to ORD67.8%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to ORD62.6%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to ORD57.7%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- United Airlines on-time record74.6%
- American Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.8%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. FLL to ORD and ORD 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.