Carrier performance at one airport
DL→MCO
Delta Air Lines at Orlando International
- Departures
- 21,416
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 13
- Rank here
- #2 of 10
Delta Air Lines at Orlando lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 21,416 flights, of which United Airlines flew 15,061 at 81.1% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 4 points ahead of the 74.3% weighted average across all carriers at MCO. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
20,971 completed departures
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.85%
At MCO, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 10 carriers clearing the floor at MCO
These figures cover 21,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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.
Against the competition
Every carrier at MCO, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.1% of the time; Allegiant Air manages 65.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 395 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 15,061 | 81.1% | 88 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 21,416 | 78.0% | 83 min | 1.85% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 17,732 | 77.0% | 76 min | 1.47% | B |
| Alaska Airlines | 2,462 | 75.9% | 60 min | 0.73% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 590 | 75.3% | 64 min | 0.34% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 19,496 | 73.3% | 89 min | 2.02% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 50,575 | 72.6% | 56 min | 1.06% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 18,641 | 71.6% | 76 min | 2.04% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 14,640 | 69.4% | 68 min | 3.55% | C− |
| Allegiant Air | 395 | 65.0% | 89 min | 1.52% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Delta Air Lines flies from MCO
Delta Air Lines operates 13 routes out of MCO with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MCO to ATL · Atlanta | 5,463 | 79.1% | 88 min | 1.24% | B |
| MCO to LGA · New York | 2,171 | 76.0% | 74 min | 4.42% | B− |
| MCO to DTW · Detroit | 2,170 | 74.2% | 77 min | 0.97% | C+ |
| MCO to JFK · New York | 1,980 | 78.1% | 84 min | 2.93% | B |
| MCO to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,868 | 77.5% | 93 min | 1.18% | B |
| MCO to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,415 | 82.7% | 78 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| MCO to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,383 | 83.8% | 78 min | 1.16% | B |
| MCO to BOS · Boston | 1,257 | 76.0% | 74 min | 2.23% | B |
| MCO to RDU · Raleigh | 1,005 | 79.3% | 92 min | 2.39% | B |
| MCO to CVG · Cincinnati | 722 | 72.5% | 86 min | 1.25% | C |
| MCO to SEA · Seattle | 719 | 75.2% | 67 min | 1.53% | B |
| MCO to DCA · Washington | 713 | 73.9% | 88 min | 3.79% | C− |
| MCO to AUS · Austin | 547 | 81.1% | 115 min | 1.46% | B |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,758 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am3,539 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm4,074 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm3,935 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm3,787 flights66.2%
- 8pm–5am2,323 flights63.7%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.7% on time, against 93.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 4,074 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 67.0% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 87.8%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 2,033 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% 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 384,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 384,387 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% 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.
21,416 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.8% on time and July 67.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 20,971 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at MCO
How often is Delta Air Lines at MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 21,416 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at MCO?
United Airlines leads at 81.1% on time across 15,061 flights. Allegiant Air is at the other end on 65.0%, a gap of 16 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Delta Air Lines at MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.7%, 30 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 July delays on Delta Air Lines at MCO?
July is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 87.8% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) all carriers
- MCO to ATL route record79.1%
- MCO to LGA route record76.0%
- MCO to DTW route record74.2%
- MCO to JFK route record78.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.