Route reliability record
LAX→FLL
Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,275
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,343 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,275 flights, with a median arrival 1 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
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,239 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
JetBlue
75.8% on time across 1,748 flights
These figures cover 2,275 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% 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 LAX to FLL
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 | 1,748 | 75.8% | 60 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 363 | 73.3% | 54 min | 0.83% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 164 | 56.4% | 65 min | 4.88% | D− |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 2,275 flights.
- 5am–8am89 flights76.7%
- 8am–11am489 flights77.3%
- 11am–2pm499 flights71.8%
- 2pm–5pm303 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am895 flights72.7%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 71.8% on time against 77.3% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 895 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 48 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 94.3% 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 238 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.7%. 9 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 35,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
- 0%Extreme weather
41% 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 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 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 34,707 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 77.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% 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 76.5% 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 94.3% on time and March 46.3%, a swing of 48 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,239 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to FLL questions
How often is LAX to FLL 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 26.0% 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 LAX to FLL compared with the rest of the country?
74.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to FLL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 77.3% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 71.8%, 6 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 LAX to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 46.3% on time, compared with 94.3% in September. Across the year that is 48 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
- FLL to LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record56.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. LAX to FLL and FLL to LAX 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.