Route reliability record
SFO→FLL
San Francisco to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,242
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,584 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,242 SFO to FLL flights, of which United Airlines flew 485 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly SFO to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Thursday flights 81.3%, against 79.3% 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
79.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,239 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.08%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.5% on time across 485 flights
These figures cover 1,242 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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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 83.5% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 76.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 757 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 485 | 83.5% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 757 | 76.5% | 69 min | 0.13% | B+ |
United leads JetBlue by 7 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.
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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 | 83.5% | 83.5% | 0.00% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. SFO → MIASan Francisco to Miami | United Airlines | 77.9% | 77.9% | 0.00% | 8pm–5am, Tue | — |
| 3. SFO → FLLSan Francisco to Fort Lauderdale | JetBlue Airways | 76.4% | 76.5% | 0.13% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 378 23:59 |
| 4. SFO → MIASan Francisco to Miami | American Airlines | 75.1% | 75.8% | 0.88% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 22 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am109 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am296 flights88.5%
- 11am–2pm195 flights67.4%
- 2pm–5pm13 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am629 flights77.1%
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 67.4% 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 629 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.0% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 67.4%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.0%
- 8–11am88.5%
- 11am–2pm67.4%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am77.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
July is the worst month at 62.4% on time, 29 points below November, the best at 91.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 143 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 81.3% on time and Saturday the weakest at 76.8%, a spread of 5 points.
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 16,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 15,768 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,951 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.08%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.1% 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 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 78.7% on time across 1,236 flights, within half a point 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 1,242 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 July 62.4%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,239 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 20.7% of the 1,242 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SFO to FLL?
United Airlines leads at 83.5% on time across 485 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 76.5%, a gap of 7 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 67.4%, 22 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 July delays on SFO to FLL?
July is the weakest month at 62.4% on time, compared with 91.0% in November. Across the year that is 29 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 FLL83.5%
- JetBlue Airways on SFO to FLL76.5%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record83.5%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.5%
- 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. 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.