Route reliability record
SFO→FLL
San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,270
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,584 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 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 an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,270 SFO to FLL flights, of which United Airlines flew 493 at 85.9% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.1%, against 81.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,263 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.39%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
85.9% on time across 493 flights
These figures cover 1,270 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
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 85.9% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 78.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 777 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 493 | 85.9% | 46 min | 0.41% | A+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 777 | 78.2% | 71 min | 0.39% | B+ |
United leads JetBlue by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly San Francisco 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SFO → FLLSan Francisco to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 85.5% | 85.9% | 0.41% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. SFO → FLLSan Francisco to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 77.9% | 78.2% | 0.39% | 5am–8am, Fri | B6 378 23:59 |
| 3. SFO → MIASan Francisco to Miami | American Airlines | 77.1% | 77.8% | 0.91% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. SFO → MIASan Francisco to Miami | United Airlines | 76.8% | 76.8% | 0.00% | 8pm–5am, 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 19 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am109 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am296 flights88.5%
- 11am–2pm195 flights70.5%
- 2pm–5pm33 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am637 flights80.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 70.5% on time against 89.0% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 637 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 91.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.2%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
38% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 38 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 15,159 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 6,299 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.39%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,584 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 runs 79.5% on time across 1,265 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,270 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. November runs 91.0% on time and March 69.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,263 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to FLL questions
How often is SFO to FLL delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.8% of the 1,270 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to FLL?
United Airlines leads at 85.9% on time across 493 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 78.2%, a gap of 8 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 70.5%, 19 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 March delays on SFO to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 69.7% on time, compared with 91.0% in November. Across the year that is 21 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to FLL85.9%
- JetBlue Airways on SFO to FLL78.2%
- SFO to LAX, a related route73.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- SFO to SEA, a related route73.7%
- United Airlines on-time record85.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record78.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. SFO to FLL and FLL to SFO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.