Route reliability record
MSY→FLL
New Orleans to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,406
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 673 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,406 MSY to FLL flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 492 at 77.5% on time.
Best time to fly MSY to FLL: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.2%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
Spirit Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.5% on time across 492 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,368 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
77.5% on time across 492 flights
These figures cover 1,406 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% 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 MSY to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 77.5% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 68.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 549 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 492 | 77.5% | 62 min | 4.07% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 365 | 73.5% | 44 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 549 | 68.9% | 82 min | 2.19% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.1% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSY to FLL
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New Orleans to Fort Lauderdale
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSY → MIANew Orleans to Miami | American Airlines | 79.6% | 80.6% | 1.24% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 74.3% | 77.5% | 4.07% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | Southwest Airlines | 73.3% | 73.5% | 0.27% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. MSY → FLLNew Orleans to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 67.4% | 68.9% | 2.19% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1822 07:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 35 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am543 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am166 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm110 flights71.6%
- 2pm–5pm346 flights59.4%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights50.3%
- 8pm–5am63 flights74.2%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.3% on time, against 85.5% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 543 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSY to FLL 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 MSY to FLL, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 85.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 50.3%, a wide gap of 35.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am85.4%
- 8–11am85.5%
- 11am–2pm71.6%
- 2–5pm59.4%
- 5–8pm50.3%
- 8pm–5am74.2%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
July is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 33 points below September, the best at 86.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 24,388 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 85.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.0% 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 673 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 62.8% on time across 1,403 flights, 10 points below 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,406 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in FLL after this flight
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 86.3% on time and July 53.3%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,368 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSY to FLL questions
How often is MSY to FLL delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 1,406 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSY to FLL?
Spirit Airlines leads at 77.5% on time across 492 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 68.9%, a gap of 9 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 MSY to FLL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 50.3%, 35 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 July delays on MSY to FLL?
July is the weakest month at 53.3% on time, compared with 86.3% in September. Across the year that is 33 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 MSY — the return legseparate record
- Louis Armstrong New Orleans International (MSY) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on MSY to FLL77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on MSY to FLL73.5%
- JetBlue Airways on MSY to FLL68.9%
- MSY to ATL, a related route82.2%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- MSY to IAH, a related route83.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.5%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record68.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MSY to FLL and FLL to MSY are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.