Carrier route record
B6RIC→FLL
JetBlue Airways · Richmond to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 551
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 68%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on RIC to FLL lands a B, about a point 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 551 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate JetBlue on RIC 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 533 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.1%
Every carrier on RIC to FLL, 809 flights
These figures cover 551 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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
JetBlue against every carrier on RIC to FLL
JetBlue flew 551 of the 809 flights on RIC to FLL, most of the route. Its 78.4% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 78.4% to Spirit at 64.8%. 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 Airways (this page) | 551 | 78.4% | 81 min | 2.90% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 258 | 64.8% | 75 min | 5.04% | D− |
Flight by flight
JetBlue flight numbers on RIC to FLL
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 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–8am352 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm18 flights—
- 2pm–5pm41 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm129 flights59.3%
- 8pm–5am10 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: 59.3% on time, against 87.5% 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 352 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on RIC to FLL through the year
January is the weak month at 56.2% on time, against 91.9% in July. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 55 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.8%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 9,297 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
49% 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 9,297 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 9,297 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 87.5% 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 costs
8.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 806 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 65.7% on time across 552 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. 551 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 JetBlue on RIC to FLL
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. 533 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.