Route reliability record
FLL→RIC
Fort Lauderdale to Richmond
- Flights
- 809
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 806 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a D− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 809 FLL to RIC flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
Best time to fly FLL to RIC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 76.9%, against 64.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 13 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 127 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
64.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 780 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
65.1% on time across 601 flights
These figures cover 809 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% 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 RIC
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 601 | 65.1% | 58 min | 2.66% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 208 | 63.1% | 88 min | 4.81% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on FLL to RIC
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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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am17 flights—
- 8am–11am141 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm49 flights67.4%
- 2pm–5pm106 flights63.1%
- 5pm–8pm137 flights55.1%
- 8pm–5am359 flights59.6%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.1% on time, against 83.3% for the 8am–11am 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 359 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to RIC 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 RIC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 55.1%, a wide gap of 28.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.3%
- 11am–2pm67.4%
- 2–5pm63.1%
- 5–8pm55.1%
- 8pm–5am59.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 49 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 87.0% 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 87 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 52.4%, a spread of 25 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 18,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 18,150 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,380 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.21%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
13.1% 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 806 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.3% on time across 808 flights, 10 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 809 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in RIC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.21% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 780 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to RIC questions
How often is FLL to RIC 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 35.4% of the 809 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is FLL to RIC compared with the rest of the country?
64.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 13 points against it. That is worth a D− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to RIC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.1%, 28 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 RIC?
March is the weakest month at 37.8% on time, compared with 87.0% in May. Across the year that is 49 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
- RIC to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to RIC65.1%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to RIC63.1%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- ATL to RIC, a related route81.6%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record65.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record63.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. FLL to RIC and RIC to FLL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed FLL to RIC’s on-time badge on your site
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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.