Route reliability record
BNA→MCO
Nashville to Orlando
- Flights
- 3,528
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 616 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,528 BNA to MCO flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 577 at 79.3% on time.
Best time to fly BNA to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.1%, against 73.8% 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
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,453 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.59%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
79.3% on time across 577 flights
These figures cover 3,528 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 BNA to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 79.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,693 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 577 | 79.3% | 90 min | 5.55% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 29 | 75.9% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,693 | 72.8% | 53 min | 0.82% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 229 | 71.4% | 91 min | 0.87% | C+ |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.5% 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Nashville 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. BNA → MCONashville to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 74.9% | 79.3% | 5.55% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | — |
| 2. BNA → MCONashville to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 72.2% | 72.8% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am775 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am633 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm543 flights76.1%
- 2pm–5pm573 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm788 flights57.6%
- 8pm–5am216 flights64.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.6% on time, against 88.1% 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. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 788 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BNA 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 BNA to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.6%, a wide gap of 30.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.1%
- 8–11am82.9%
- 11am–2pm76.1%
- 2–5pm68.2%
- 5–8pm57.6%
- 8pm–5am64.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 328 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.6%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 54,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 54,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 54,356 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 88.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.59% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.54%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 616 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 runs 73.2% on time across 3,550 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,528 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 89.1% on time and May 61.2%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 3,453 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BNA to MCO questions
How often is BNA to MCO delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.2% of the 3,528 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BNA to MCO?
Spirit Airlines leads at 79.3% on time across 577 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of 7 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 BNA to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.6%, 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 May delays on BNA to MCO?
May is the weakest month at 61.2% on time, compared with 89.1% in September. Across the year that is 28 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 BNA — the return legseparate record
- Nashville International (BNA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on BNA to MCO79.3%
- Southwest Airlines on BNA to MCO72.8%
- Frontier Airlines on BNA to MCO71.4%
- BNA to ORD, a related route70.9%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- BNA to DCA, a related route71.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. BNA to MCO and MCO to BNA 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.