Fort Lauderdale flares up

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport absorbed the bigger shock on Sunday, April 13, with 322 disrupted flights, while Miami International Airport also posted widespread delays the same day. (traveltourister.com) Fort Lauderdale’s total was 300 delays and 22 cancellations, and 20 of those cancellations were tied to Spirit Airlines, the airport’s dominant carrier. Miami logged 138 delays and one cancellation across airlines including Spirit, Air Canada, Delta Air Lines, KLM and Qatar Airways. (traveltourister.com) (thetraveler.org) South Florida travelers were already dealing with a rough stretch before Sunday. The Palm Beach Post reported that Fort Lauderdale had more than 1,000 delays and 50 cancellations the previous weekend. (palmbeachpost.com) Fort Lauderdale is unusually exposed when Spirit stumbles because the airline is the airport’s largest carrier. Broward County said Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood handled 32.2 million passengers in 2025, making it one of the busiest airports in the country. (broward.org) Miami operates at a different scale but faces the same network problem when delays spread from one bank of flights to the next. Miami-Dade County said Miami International handled nearly 56 million passengers in 2025, its third straight record year. (miamidade.gov) The Federal Aviation Administration’s daily air traffic report for Monday, April 13, did not flag Fort Lauderdale or Miami among the airports facing forecast weather impacts. The listed trouble spots were Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Las Vegas, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Seattle. (faa.gov) Fort Lauderdale did have planned runway work starting Monday, April 13. Broward County said the airport’s north runway was scheduled to close from 12:01 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. on April 13 and again from 12:01 a.m. to noon on April 14, with all flights shifted to the south runway during those windows. (broward.org) That timing leaves two overlapping pressures in South Florida aviation: a carrier-heavy disruption at Fort Lauderdale and a separate wave of delays at Miami on one of the busiest spring travel corridors in the country. For passengers, the practical advice from the Federal Aviation Administration and Fort Lauderdale airport remained the same on April 13: check directly with the airline for flight-specific status. (faa.gov) (broward.org)