Route reliability record
ALB→MCO
Albany to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,021
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,073 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,021 ALB to MCO flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 395 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly ALB to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Thursday flights 89.6%, against 80.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,007 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
83.5% on time across 395 flights
These figures cover 1,021 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ALB to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 395 | 83.5% | 52 min | 1.77% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 626 | 78.0% | 60 min | 0.80% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. JetBlue tops the table at 83.5%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ALB to MCO
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Albany to Orlando
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ALB → MCOAlbany to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 82.0% | 83.5% | 1.77% | 5am–8am, Thu | B6 2920 06:00 |
| 2. ALB → MCOAlbany to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 77.4% | 78.0% | 0.80% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am517 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am186 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm62 flights71.0%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights59.7%
- 5pm–8pm178 flights62.9%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.2% of the time, against 59.7% for the afternoon window. That is 30 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 517 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ALB to MCO by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ALB to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 59.7%, a wide gap of 29.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.2%
- 8–11am83.2%
- 11am–2pm71.0%
- 2–5pm59.7%
- 5–8pm62.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
February is the weak month at 67.0% on time, against 89.4% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. February was the busiest month here, with 112 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 89.6% on time and Saturday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
39% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,499 minutes out of 11,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 11,420 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,073 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.9% on time across 1,024 flights, 11 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,021 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MCO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,021 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,007 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ALB to MCO questions
How often is ALB to MCO delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.9% of the 1,021 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ALB to MCO?
JetBlue Airways leads at 83.5% on time across 395 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 78.0%, a gap of 6 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 ALB to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 59.7%, 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 February delays on ALB to MCO?
February is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 89.4% in June. Across the year that is 22 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
- MCO to ALB — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on ALB to MCO83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on ALB to MCO78.0%
- ALB to ORD, a related route77.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- ALB to BWI, a related route87.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record83.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.0%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. ALB to MCO and MCO to ALB are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.