Carrier route record
WNPIT→FLL
Southwest Airlines · Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 392
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 36%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on PIT to FLL lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That rests on 392 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on PIT to FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 388 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.02%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on PIT to FLL, 1,102 flights
These figures cover 392 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on PIT to FLL
Southwest flew 392 of the 1,102 flights on PIT to FLL, about 36% of it. Its 78.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 82.1% to Spirit at 77.0%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 303 | 82.1% | 82 min | 2.31% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 392 | 78.1% | 55 min | 1.02% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 407 | 77.0% | 68 min | 5.65% | B− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 45 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am184 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am64 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm53 flights71.7%
- 2pm–5pm53 flights45.3%
- 5pm–8pm22 flights—
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 45.3% for the afternoon window. That is 45 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 184 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on PIT to FLL through the year
Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 53.1%. February is the strongest month at 91.2%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 38 points. July was the busiest month here, with 38 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%, a spread of 25 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on PIT to FLL runs when it is late
The 85 late arrivals split 40 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 18 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early77 flights19.8%
- Within 15 min226 flights58.2%
- 15–29 min late40 flights10.3%
- 30–59 min late27 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late7 flights1.8%
- 2+ hours late11 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 388 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
22 of 86 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 21 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at FLL.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on PIT to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 March 2026, 5 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across March, June and December, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 March 2026 | 5 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 March 2026 | 4 hours 22 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 June 2026 | 4 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 31 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 2 December 2025 | 3 hours 19 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 4,651 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,831 of the 4,651 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,651 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.02% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
The 994 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 64.9% on time across 393 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 392 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 Southwest on PIT to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 392 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 78.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 388 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PIT to FLL, every carrier
- Southwest on FLL to PIT, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on PIT to FLL82.1%
- Spirit Airlines on PIT to FLL77.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.