Carrier route record
DLSEA→FLL
Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 44%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on SEA to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on SEA 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
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.6%
Every carrier on SEA to FLL, 826 flights
These figures cover 364 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on SEA to FLL
Delta flew 364 of the 826 flights on SEA to FLL, about 44% of it. Its 75.3% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 81.1% to Delta at 75.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 462 | 81.1% | 44 min | 0.22% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample | 364 | 75.3% | 47 min | 1.37% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on SEA to FLL
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 Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 364 flights.
There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Delta's SEA to FLL record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 75.3% is the reliable figure here.
Across the year
Delta on SEA to FLL through the year
December is the weak month at 56.7% on time, against 93.3% in September. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.0%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on SEA to FLL runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 44 of the 88 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 20 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early81 flights22.8%
- Within 15 min187 flights52.5%
- 15–29 min late44 flights12.4%
- 30–59 min late24 flights6.7%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights3.9%
- 2+ hours late6 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 356 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 73 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. In the other direction, 33 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 Delta on SEA to FLL
The latest arrival of the period was on 13 December 2025, 3 hours 53 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 13 December 2025 | 3 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 January 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 August 2026 | 2 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 25 July 2026 | 2 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 July 2026 | 2 hours 6 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 4,122 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,785 of the 4,122 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 4,122 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,717 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.5% on time across 364 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 Delta on SEA to FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 75.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 356 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to FLL, every carrier
- Delta on FLL to SEA, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to FLL81.1%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.