Carrier route record
WNAUS→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Austin to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,885
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 68%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on AUS to MCO 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 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,885 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on AUS to MCO runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 65 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,861 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.9%
Every carrier on AUS to MCO, 2,792 flights
These figures cover 1,885 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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
Southwest against every carrier on AUS to MCO
Southwest flew 1,885 of the 2,792 flights on AUS to MCO, most of the route. Its 71.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.1% to Spirit at 62.9%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 547 | 81.1% | 61 min | 1.46% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 171 | 77.1% | 71 min | 2.92% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,885 | 71.1% | 57 min | 0.95% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 189 | 62.9% | 99 min | 5.82% | D− |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am393 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am289 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm287 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm377 flights53.8%
- 5pm–8pm418 flights56.4%
- 8pm–5am121 flights57.1%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 53.8% for the afternoon window. That is 36 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 418 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on AUS to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 219 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.9%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 30,826 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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.32%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 994 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.4% on time across 1,885 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,885 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 Southwest on AUS to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.4% on time and March 59.3%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,861 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to AUS, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to MCO81.1%
- Frontier Airlines on AUS to MCO77.1%
- Spirit Airlines on AUS to MCO62.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- 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. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.