Route reliability record
ATL→MCO
Atlanta to Orlando
- Flights
- 8,267
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 8,267 ATL to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,095 at 74.5% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 77.9%, against 70.3% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 74.5% on time across 1,095 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,107 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.5% on time across 1,095 flights
These figures cover 8,267 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 74.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,270 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,095 | 74.5% | 60 min | 1.19% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 368 | 73.5% | 87 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Delta Air Lines | 5,534 | 70.5% | 65 min | 1.32% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,270 | 64.8% | 117 min | 2.20% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.6% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL 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.
- Delta 165809:2583.4% · 365 flights
- Delta 103011:2580.2% · 365 flights
- Delta 121308:1586.9% · 365 flights
- Delta 149717:1557.1% · 364 flights
- Delta 174216:0055.5% · 364 flights
- Delta 66410:2584.0% · 363 flights
- Delta 115014:5061.3% · 363 flights
- Delta 137213:4571.2% · 359 flights
- Delta 203518:1556.8% · 351 flights
- Delta 288119:2061.5% · 347 flights
- Delta 173321:3565.0% · 339 flights
- Delta 116222:2067.8% · 336 flights
- Delta 220407:1588.1% · 312 flights
- Frontier 455608:1476.3% · 301 flights
- Frontier 397612:3966.9% · 291 flights
- Delta 157612:4076.3% · 271 flights
- Delta 173520:1563.2% · 254 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Orlando
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → DABAtlanta to Daytona Beach | Delta Air Lines | 84.8% | 86.3% | 1.73% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 3035 08:55 |
| 2. ATL → MLBAtlanta to Melbourne | Delta Air Lines | 82.6% | 83.8% | 1.38% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3118 08:55 |
| 3. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 73.6% | 74.5% | 1.19% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 70.1% | 73.5% | 4.62% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 5. ATL → MCOAtlanta to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 69.6% | 70.5% | 1.32% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2204 07:15 |
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 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am729 flights85.6%
- 8am–11am1,775 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm1,439 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm1,237 flights60.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,574 flights56.0%
- 8pm–5am1,513 flights62.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.0% on time, against 85.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,775 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL 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 ATL to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 56.0%, a wide gap of 29.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.6%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm77.0%
- 2–5pm60.9%
- 5–8pm56.0%
- 8pm–5am62.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 56.0% on time, 23 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. March was the busiest month here, with 783 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.9%, a spread of 15 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 180,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 69,000 of the 180,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 180,248 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 85.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.58% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 74.9% on time across 8,259 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 8,267 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MCO after this flight
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 July 56.0%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 8,107 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to MCO questions
How often is ATL to MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.7% of the 8,267 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 74.5% on time across 1,095 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 64.8%, a gap of 10 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 85.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 56.0%, 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 ATL to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 56.0% on time, compared with 79.2% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 ATL to MCO74.5%
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to MCO73.5%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to MCO70.5%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to MCO64.8%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- EWR to MCO, a related route77.9%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record73.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record70.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.
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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.