Route reliability record
LGA→FLL
New York to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 4,610
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,076 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% 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 4,610 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,600 at 70.1% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 70.1% on time across 1,600 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,394 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.47%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
70.1% on time across 1,600 flights
These figures cover 4,610 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.0% 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 LGA to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 70.1% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 64.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,539 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,600 | 70.1% | 68 min | 3.94% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,041 | 70.0% | 81 min | 6.63% | C− |
| American Airlines | 430 | 69.8% | 77 min | 4.19% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,539 | 64.0% | 86 min | 3.64% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.6% 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 32 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,122 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am524 flights72.4%
- 11am–2pm1,093 flights69.1%
- 2pm–5pm906 flights55.8%
- 5pm–8pm678 flights59.4%
- 8pm–5am287 flights51.9%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.9% on time, against 84.0% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 57.3% on time, against 79.5% in September. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.1%. 17 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 110,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 3%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 110,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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.
35% 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 39,000 minutes out of 110,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.47%, against 1.80% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty 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. 14.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 1,076 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 65.8% on time across 4,608 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 4,610 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 4.47% 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.
Common questions
LGA to FLL questions
How often is LGA to FLL delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.0% of the 4,610 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to FLL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 70.1% on time across 1,600 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 64.0%, a gap of 6 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 LGA to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.9%, 32 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 LGA to FLL?
December is the weakest month at 57.3% on time, compared with 79.5% in September. Across the year that is 22 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.0%
- American Airlines on-time record69.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
Direction matters. LGA to FLL and FLL to LGA 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.