Route reliability record
TPA→FLL
Tampa to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,410
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,410 TPA to FLL flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.7%, against 72.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,362 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
67.8% on time across 691 flights
These figures cover 1,410 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% 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 TPA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 355 | 85.4% | 119 min | 2.82% | A |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 68.3% | 54 min | 2.20% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 691 | 67.8% | 65 min | 3.91% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA 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.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa 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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. TPA → MIATampa to Miami | American Airlines | 79.3% | 79.9% | 0.72% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. TPA → MIATampa to Miami | Envoy Air | 68.4% | 70.9% | 3.57% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 3. TPA → FLLTampa to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 65.1% | 67.8% | 3.91% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am233 flights94.3%
- 8am–11am314 flights84.3%
- 11am–2pm61 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm285 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm279 flights51.3%
- 8pm–5am238 flights60.3%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.3% on time, against 94.3% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 314 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA 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 TPA to FLL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 51.3%, a wide gap of 43.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.3%
- 8–11am84.3%
- 11am–2pm78.3%
- 2–5pm70.0%
- 5–8pm51.3%
- 8pm–5am60.3%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 85.5% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 165 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. The split is drawn from 26,033 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 94.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.19%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 actually costs
10.4% 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.
At 197 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 72.2% on time across 1,412 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 1,410 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.19% 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. 1,362 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to FLL questions
How often is TPA 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 27.7% of the 1,410 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to FLL compared with the rest of the country?
72.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.3%, 43 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 TPA to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 56.1% on time, compared with 85.5% 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 TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on TPA to FLL85.4%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to FLL68.3%
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to FLL67.8%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record85.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record67.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. TPA to FLL and FLL to TPA 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.