Which airports have the worst delays, the most cancellations? When is the best time to fly?

Jacksonville, Fla. – If you’re flying and want to save money or find better options, consider looking at airports beyond Jacksonville International. Some travelers go to places like Orlando or Savannah to catch a flight.

But that can be difficult when flight cancellations or delays dictate the odds and you need to drive several hours to the airport.

When we started looking between JX, Savannah, Orlando and other major airports in Florida, we found differences in some with more delays and others with more cancellations.

“I prefer Jacksonville; it’s so convenient. You might have to go through Atlanta or Miami to get to the Caribbean,” said traveler Jolorie Williams.

But others are willing to travel. before You travel to save some money, especially when you book tickets for several people like a family.

“I’m paying for three other people, so I’m more concerned about it,” said commuter Amanda Hult.

News4JAX analyzed Department of Transportation data from last summer — June, July and August 2022 — looking at these airports and:

• Flight delays

• Cancellations

• Best time of day to fly

Here’s what we found:

b DelaysOrlando Airport fared the worst: 13% of its flights were excessively delayed — that is, delayed by an hour or more. Jacksonville, Savannah, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa were overdue last summer at 9%, with Fort Myers at 10%.

Use the interactive below to browse hour-by-hour delays for this story:

Bill McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Freedom Project and a former airline dispatcher, pointed to the so-called hub-and-spoke system for airports.

For example, Orlando is a hub that feeds smaller airports and Jacksonville is considered a hub.

“With Orlando being a major hub, it’s not surprising that there are a lot of delays because it only takes one or two flights to disrupt the entire flight bank,” McGee said. The best way to think about how airlines work – hub and spoke – is to think of freight carriers like UPS and FedEx – and we’re boxes. They bring all the boxes and prepare them and send all the boxes back. That’s what they do with us.”

b Cancellations, What we see, we see in reverse. Orlando canceled 1.7% of flights last summer, followed by Jacksonville with 3.1% cancellations. Miami was slightly higher than that (3.2%) and Savannah had the highest percentage of airport cancellations we looked at at 3.9%.

“If you’re in a connection, chances are you’ll have another flight to your destination within a few hours. In speech surgery, it’s very difficult. They have no wealth. It’s not always possible to swap another plane,” McGee said.

Use the interactive below to browse hourly cancellations at the airports we examined for this story:

Time of day to fly It may be important to take notes. It is always better to fly earlier in the day. Look at Jacksonville’s numbers, for example. Between 2pm and 3pm, 13% of flights are delayed an hour or more, and this number rises to 20% at night.

We see similar jumps across the region. one fourth (25%) Orlando flights between 7pm and 8pm are delayed at least an hour.

There’s another trend we’ve noticed — one that News4JAX’s weather official helped explain — specifically involving moving out of Orlando. Both Jacksonville and Orlando are particularly prone to afternoon thunderstorms in the summer, compared to other Florida airports due to their topography. Orlando had more delays than JAX.

So, if you’re not worried about money or time, you can stay close to home with just JAX.

McGee says that if your flight is canceled and the airline is just giving you a credit for another flight, Department of Transportation rules state that you should be refunded even if you don’t file one. If you want money back, you have the right to ask for it, he said.

Use the interactive below to compare on-time performance for JAX Airlines as of January 2021: