Route reliability record
RDU→FLL
Raleigh to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,402
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 680 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,402 RDU to FLL flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly RDU to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.7%, against 77.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,367 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
79.5% on time across 668 flights
These figures cover 1,402 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 RDU to FLL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 364 | 80.8% | 67 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 668 | 79.5% | 78 min | 2.10% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 76.3% | 62 min | 2.11% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 70 | 68.1% | 76 min | 1.43% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 158 | 62.8% | 75 min | 7.59% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU 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 Raleigh 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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RDU → FLLRaleigh to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 77.8% | 79.5% | 2.10% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2625 07:00 |
| 2. RDU → MIARaleigh to Miami | American Airlines | 77.2% | 78.4% | 1.56% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am359 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am218 flights82.2%
- 11am–2pm443 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm142 flights59.7%
- 5pm–8pm220 flights58.4%
- 8pm–5am20 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.4% on time, against 88.4% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 443 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU 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 RDU to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.4%, a wide gap of 30.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am82.2%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm59.7%
- 5–8pm58.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
December is the weak month at 67.7% on time, against 93.3% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. August was the busiest month here, with 142 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 22,882 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 88.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.28% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.1% 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 680 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 67.9% on time across 1,402 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,402 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. October runs 93.3% on time and December 67.7%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,367 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to FLL questions
How often is RDU to FLL delayed?
Roughly 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 22.8% of the 1,402 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is RDU to FLL compared with the rest of the country?
77.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on RDU to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.4%, 30 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 December delays on RDU to FLL?
December is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 93.3% in October. Across the year that is 26 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 RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to FLL80.8%
- JetBlue Airways on RDU to FLL79.5%
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to FLL76.3%
- Spirit Airlines on RDU to FLL62.8%
- RDU to ATL, a related route86.5%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record79.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.3%
- 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. RDU to FLL and FLL to RDU 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.