Route reliability record
PHL→FLL
Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 3,411
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 993 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,411 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,449 at 75.9% on time.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.9% on time across 1,449 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,299 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
75.9% on time across 1,449 flights
These figures cover 3,411 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 PHL to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 75.9% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 69.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 709 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,449 | 75.9% | 74 min | 2.62% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 579 | 73.1% | 81 min | 1.73% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 674 | 70.1% | 75 min | 2.08% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 709 | 69.5% | 69 min | 5.22% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.2% 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 17 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,012 flights79.9%
- 8am–11am544 flights77.5%
- 11am–2pm588 flights77.5%
- 2pm–5pm287 flights63.7%
- 5pm–8pm583 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am397 flights63.4%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.3% 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 1,012 flights scheduled in it.
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 82.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%. 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 66,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 4%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 66,434 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 2.90%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 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. 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 73.2% on time across 3,410 flights, within half 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 3,411 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 2.90% 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. 3,299 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 3,411 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 75.9% on time across 1,449 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 69.5%, 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 63.3%, 17 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-time record75.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.1%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.