Route reliability record
PHL→FLL
Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 3,588
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 993 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four 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 3,588 PHL to FLL flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,628 at 75.4% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.4%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.4% on time across 1,628 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,459 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
75.4% on time across 1,628 flights
These figures cover 3,588 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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 PHL to FLL
The four carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,628 | 75.4% | 78 min | 2.70% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 659 | 72.4% | 82 min | 2.28% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 730 | 70.9% | 80 min | 3.29% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 571 | 69.9% | 69 min | 5.95% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.0% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on PHL 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 Philadelphia 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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → MIAPhiladelphia to Miami | American Airlines | 76.5% | 78.7% | 2.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHL → PBIPhiladelphia to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 76.2% | 78.0% | 2.29% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | American Airlines | 73.4% | 75.4% | 2.70% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 1864 19:00 |
| 4. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | Frontier Airlines | 70.7% | 72.4% | 2.28% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 2609 06:00 |
| 5. PHL → FLLPhiladelphia to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 68.6% | 70.9% | 3.29% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 375 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 18 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,099 flights79.9%
- 8am–11am602 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm524 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm397 flights63.0%
- 5pm–8pm701 flights61.5%
- 8pm–5am265 flights72.7%
Scale runs 55% to 85%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 79.9% 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 1,099 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 79.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.5%, a wide gap of 18.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am79.9%
- 8–11am78.3%
- 11am–2pm76.2%
- 2–5pm63.0%
- 5–8pm61.5%
- 8pm–5am72.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 83.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 345 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.6%, a spread of 15 points.
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 72,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 72,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 71,983 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 79.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.26%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
11.3% 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 993 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 runs 72.0% on time across 3,589 flights, within about a point 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 3,588 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.26% 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. 3,459 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to FLL questions
How often is PHL 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 3,588 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to FLL?
American Airlines leads at 75.4% on time across 1,628 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 69.9%, 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 PHL to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 79.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.5%, 18 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 PHL to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 65.8% on time, compared with 83.7% in September. Across the year that is 18 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHL to FLL75.4%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to FLL72.4%
- JetBlue Airways on PHL to FLL70.9%
- Spirit Airlines on PHL to FLL69.9%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record75.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record72.4%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to FLL and FLL to PHL 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.