Route reliability record
TPA→FLL
Tampa to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,418
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,418 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 94.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.4%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,380 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Spirit
70.6% on time across 823 flights
These figures cover 1,418 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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
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 | 231 | 89.0% | 90 min | 0.87% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 823 | 70.6% | 67 min | 3.28% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 68.5% | 59 min | 2.20% | C |
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. 1 of the top 2 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 | 77.3% | 78.0% | 0.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. TPA → FLLTampa to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 68.3% | 70.6% | 3.28% | 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 44 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–8am231 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am321 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm59 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm295 flights71.8%
- 5pm–8pm252 flights50.6%
- 8pm–5am260 flights62.2%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.6% on time, against 94.7% 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 321 flights scheduled in it.
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 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.4%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 25,000 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
- 27%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 3%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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 24,522 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 94.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 73.8% on time across 1,422 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 1,418 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 85.5% on time and March 56.1%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to FLL questions
How often is TPA to FLL delayed?
About 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 26.9% of the 1,418 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to FLL compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 94.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 50.6%, 44 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 FLL89.0%
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to FLL70.6%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to FLL68.5%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record89.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record68.5%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.