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RIC to FLL flight delays

Richmond, VA (RIC) Fort Lauderdale, FL (FLL) · 806 miles

809 flights · January 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics

74.13%

Arrived on time

Within 15 minutes of schedule

3.58%

Cancelled

Share of scheduled flights

78 min

When late, late by

Average across delayed arrivals

21 min

Delay per flight

Averaged over every flight flown

What the record says about this route

Which airline you fly changes the odds here. JetBlue Airways arrived on time 13.7 points more often than Spirit Airlines over the same period on the same route — same airports, same weather, same air traffic control. A gap that survives all of that is about how the two airlines are run.

The season swings this route hard. In October it ran 36.1 points more punctual than in December — a difference bigger than the one between the best and worst airlines on most routes. If the date is flexible, it is worth more than the carrier.

Cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth pricing here: 3.58% of scheduled flights never operated. A late flight still gets you there. A cancelled one leaves you rebooking, and on a route with few daily departures that can mean losing a day.

The two directions do not behave alike. FLL to RIC arrives on time 8.3 points less often than the outbound. Delay accumulates through the flying day, so whichever direction is scheduled later tends to carry the worse record — which is an argument for booking the morning departure if the choice exists.

Which airline should you fly on this route?

Over January 2025 – August 2026, JetBlue Airways arrived on time most often on RIC to FLL. Spirit Airlines was late most often. Flights ran closest to schedule in October and worst in December.

Every airline on RIC to FLL

Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.

Airline Flights On time Cancelled Avg delay Grade
JetBlue Airways 551 78.42% 2.9% 81 min C
Spirit Airlines 258 64.75% 5.04% 75 min F

Month by month

Share of flights that arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, by month flown.

Jul 2025 peak 91 Jun 2026
On-time arrival rate, %

Common questions

Are flights from Richmond to Fort Lauderdale usually delayed?

74.13% of flights on the RIC to FLL route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is about the same as the average route in this record.

Which airline is most on time from Richmond to Fort Lauderdale?

JetBlue Airways, at 78.42% on time across 551 flights. The least punctual on the route was Spirit Airlines at 64.75%.

How often are RIC to FLL flights cancelled?

3.58% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 36 in every thousand. That is high enough that cancellation, not delay, is the risk worth planning around.

What is the best month to fly Richmond to Fort Lauderdale?

October, when 91.2% of flights arrived on time. The worst was December at 55.1%.

When RIC to FLL flights are late, how late are they?

About 78 minutes on average across the flights that arrived more than 15 minutes behind schedule.

What these figures do and do not tell you

Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on RIC to FLL during January 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.

Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →