Route profile
FLL→PHL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia, 992 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 7% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 8,834 flights. How this is calculated
FLL → PHL arrives on time 72.9% of the time; the return trip, PHL → FLL, arrives on time 73.7% of the time.
FLL → PHL spends 26.4 minutes on the ground on a 992-mile trip: 17.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at FLL and 9.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at PHL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route's worst arrivals run unusually far past its typical one, a bigger gap than 95% of 4,598 comparable routes.
A typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth run 76 minutes worse than that.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,598 in the comparison.
Why FLL → PHL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
FLL → PHL cancelled 208 of 8,834 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 42. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 68.8% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 62 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 208 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
143 cancellations, 68.8% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
56 cancellations, 26.9% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
9 cancellations, 4.3% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
208 coded cancellations were recorded on FLL → PHL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
71 min late
against a median of 5 min early
FLL → PHL has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 5 min early, but the worst tenth are 76 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 8,834 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PHL after arriving from FLL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 41% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 27% | High risk |
| 60 min | 19% | High risk |
| 90 min | 12% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 7.5% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.35% of the time and diverts 0.12% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 8,615 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 71 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 8,834 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
FLL → PHL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 91.7% of the time, against 59.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 32.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 91.6% on time from 1,383 flights
- 7 AM: 92.5% on time from 695 flights
- 8 AM: 94.1% on time from 242 flights
- 9 AM: 75.9% on time from 257 flights
- 10 AM: 82.3% on time from 412 flights
- 11 AM: 72.6% on time from 269 flights
- 12 PM: 74.4% on time from 930 flights
- 1 PM: 63.5% on time from 282 flights
- 2 PM: 67.6% on time from 864 flights
- 3 PM: 57.8% on time from 300 flights
- 4 PM: 67.3% on time from 361 flights
- 5 PM: 58.0% on time from 489 flights
- 6 PM: 56.8% on time from 442 flights
- 7 PM: 59.1% on time from 388 flights
- 8 PM: 61.7% on time from 771 flights
- 9 PM: 61.1% on time from 630 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why FLL → PHL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for FLL → PHL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on FLL → PHL, at 48.7%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 91.7% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 59.7%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 4,000 | 77.1% | 2.23% | -8 min | 10.8% |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,498 | 69.7% | 1.96% | -2 min | 11.8% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,562 | 68.2% | 3.20% | -3 min | 13.6% |
| JetBlue | 759 | 71.5% | 2.50% | -5 min | 12.5% |
American Airlines flew 45.4% of the 8,819 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 3.20% of its flights here against 1.96% for Spirit Airlines.
American Airlines arrived on time 8.9 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA444 American Airlines | 7:00 AM | 885 | 94.0% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 11.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 71.3%
- Feb: 74.2%
- Mar: 66.3%
- Apr: 77.1%
- May: 76.7%
- Jun: 74.2%
- Jul: 64.0%
- Aug: 65.2%
- Sep: 77.8%
- Oct: 82.4%
- Nov: 79.5%
- Dec: 72.5%
July is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 18.4 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 65.7% from 220 flights
- August 2023: 67.8% from 234 flights
- September 2023: 78.0% from 196 flights
- October 2023: 74.9% from 187 flights
- November 2023: 69.6% from 191 flights
- December 2023: 70.6% from 228 flights
- January 2024: 69.9% from 243 flights
- February 2024: 74.7% from 230 flights
- March 2024: 67.1% from 261 flights
- April 2024: 79.4% from 270 flights
- May 2024: 78.5% from 250 flights
- June 2024: 72.3% from 185 flights
- July 2024: 56.3% from 203 flights
- August 2024: 52.8% from 212 flights
- September 2024: 68.9% from 162 flights
- October 2024: 85.4% from 158 flights
- November 2024: 87.3% from 165 flights
- December 2024: 76.1% from 201 flights
- January 2025: 74.9% from 202 flights
- February 2025: 83.8% from 188 flights
- March 2025: 74.7% from 243 flights
- April 2025: 83.0% from 283 flights
- May 2025: 76.6% from 211 flights
- June 2025: 71.3% from 170 flights
- July 2025: 69.8% from 233 flights
- August 2025: 72.6% from 253 flights
- September 2025: 84.4% from 213 flights
- October 2025: 86.0% from 259 flights
- November 2025: 81.8% from 261 flights
- December 2025: 71.5% from 325 flights
- January 2026: 70.0% from 328 flights
- February 2026: 67.7% from 310 flights
- March 2026: 59.9% from 346 flights
- April 2026: 70.3% from 335 flights
- May 2026: 75.1% from 258 flights
- June 2026: 77.1% from 289 flights
- July 2026: 63.3% from 331 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 72.4% against 75.2% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.8 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 8,834 FLL → PHL flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed