Carrier route record

DLLAX→FLL

Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale

Flights: 363
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 16%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on LAX to FLL 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 roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Delta on LAX to FLL runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.

On time

73.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 359 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.83%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.0%

Every carrier on LAX to FLL, 2,275 flights

These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on LAX to FLL

Delta flew 363 of the 2,275 flights on LAX to FLL, about 16% of it. Its 73.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 75.8% to Spirit at 56.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to FLL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
JetBlue Airways	1,748	75.8%	60 min	0.97%	B+
Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample	363	73.3%	54 min	0.83%	C+
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	164	56.4%	65 min	4.88%	D−

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on LAX to FLL

DL 47723:4573.3% · 363 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

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 363 flights.

The overnight block holds up unusually well at 73.3% on time across 363 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on LAX to FLL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.June best, December worst

December is the weak month at 51.6% on time, against 93.3% in June. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 59.6%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 5,157 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Carrier
43%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
20%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

35% 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 5,157 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 24 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 5,157 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,206 of the 5,157 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.83%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.1% 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 last roughly 55 minutes, 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.8% on time across 363 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 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.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on LAX to FLL

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 363 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 73.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 359 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures