Carrier route record

WNPIT→FLL

Southwest Airlines · Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale

Flights: 395
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 36%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on PIT to FLL lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 395 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

79.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 391 completed flights

Avg delay

54 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.01%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on PIT to FLL, 1,105 flights

These figures cover 395 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on PIT to FLL

Southwest flew 395 of the 1,105 flights on PIT to FLL, about 36% of it. Its 79.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 82.3% to Spirit at 79.1%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PIT to FLL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
JetBlue Airwaysthin sample	241	82.3%	91 min	1.66%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)	395	79.3%	54 min	1.01%	B
Spirit Airlines	469	79.1%	70 min	4.90%	B−

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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am174 flights90.7%
8am–11am63 flights88.7%
11am–2pm57 flights71.9%
2pm–5pm72 flights56.9%
5pm–8pm17 flights—
8pm–5am12 flights—

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 56.9% for the afternoon window. That is 34 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 174 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on PIT to FLL through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.July best, May worst

Delays peak in May, when the on-time rate falls to 53.1%. July is the strongest month at 91.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 38 points. June was the busiest month here, with 36 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 95.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 4,372 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
39%
Late-arriving aircraft
32%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
0%

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,704 of the 4,372 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,372 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 90.7% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.1% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.4% on time across 396 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 395 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. 395 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 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 391 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures