Route reliability record
ATL→MCO
Atlanta to Orlando
- Flights
- 8,229
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 404 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 8,229 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,095 at 75.2% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.2% on time across 1,095 flights.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,088 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.2% on time across 1,095 flights
These figures cover 8,229 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.9% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 75.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 64.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,146 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,095 | 75.2% | 62 min | 1.10% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 526 | 71.3% | 89 min | 3.23% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 5,462 | 68.4% | 64 min | 1.17% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,146 | 64.3% | 109 min | 1.83% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.2% 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.
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 32 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am674 flights86.1%
- 8am–11am1,878 flights82.7%
- 11am–2pm1,361 flights76.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,308 flights59.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,597 flights53.9%
- 8pm–5am1,411 flights60.2%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.9% on time, against 86.1% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
June is the worst month at 52.2% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 79.2%. 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.7%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 181,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 70,000 of the 181,000 delay minutes reported here.
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 86.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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.
At 404 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.6% on time across 8,226 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 8,229 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 79.2% on time and June 52.2%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
ATL to MCO questions
How often is ATL to MCO delayed?
About one flight in three arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.1% of the 8,229 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 75.2% on time across 1,095 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 64.3%, a gap of 11 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 ATL to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.9%, 32 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 June delays on ATL to MCO?
June is the weakest month at 52.2% on time, compared with 79.2% in September. Across the year that is 27 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record71.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record68.4%
- 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. ATL to MCO and MCO to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.