Route reliability record

JFK→FLL

New York to Fort Lauderdale

Flights: 3,884
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,069 mi
Carriers: 2

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten 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 3,884 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,614 at 76.5% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 49 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,723 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.76%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

76.5% on time across 1,614 flights

These figures cover 3,884 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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

Which airline is most reliable on JFK to FLL

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 76.5% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,270 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on JFK to FLL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,614	76.5%	69 min	3.47%	B−
JetBlue Airways	2,270	70.0%	69 min	3.96%	C−

JetBlue Airways cancels 4.0% 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 25 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am927 flights86.3%
8am–11am411 flights73.7%
11am–2pm663 flights77.3%
2pm–5pm775 flights68.1%
5pm–8pm519 flights62.0%
8pm–5am589 flights61.1%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.1% 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 927 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 30 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.May best, December worst

December is the weak month at 55.6% on time, against 85.9% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 388 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.6%. 18 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 70,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
40%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
28%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

40% 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 70,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 69,713 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 run at 3.76%, against 1.81% 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. 10.4% 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 70.2% on time across 3,877 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 3,884 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 3.76% 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. 3,723 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

JFK to FLL questions

How often is JFK to FLL delayed?

Roughly 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 27.3% of the 3,884 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on JFK to FLL?

Delta Air Lines leads at 76.5% on time across 1,614 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.0%, a gap of 7 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 JFK to FLL?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.1%, 25 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 December delays on JFK to FLL?

December is the weakest month at 55.6% on time, compared with 85.9% in May. Across the year that is 30 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. JFK to FLL and FLL to JFK 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.

Key figures