Route reliability record
BUF→MCO
Buffalo to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,813
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,011 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,813 BUF to MCO flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 562 at 78.1% on time.
Best time to fly BUF to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.1%, against 75.4% 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,773 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
78.1% on time across 562 flights
These figures cover 1,813 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 BUF to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 | 562 | 78.1% | 80 min | 3.38% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 948 | 75.0% | 52 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 303 | 71.3% | 98 min | 2.31% | C |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.4% 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 BUF 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 Buffalo 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. BUF → MCOBuffalo to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 75.5% | 78.1% | 3.38% | 5am–8am, Sat | B6 85 08:00 |
| 2. BUF → MCOBuffalo to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 74.4% | 75.0% | 0.74% | 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 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am496 flights89.9%
- 8am–11am339 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm255 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm256 flights60.1%
- 5pm–8pm300 flights61.4%
- 8pm–5am167 flights64.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.9% of the time, against 60.1% 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 496 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BUF 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 BUF to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 60.1%, a wide gap of 29.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.9%
- 8–11am79.3%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm60.1%
- 5–8pm61.4%
- 8pm–5am64.8%
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.
December is the weak month at 60.4% on time, against 88.8% in October. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 1%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. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 41 to one. The split is drawn from 29,867 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 89.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.82% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.39%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,011 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 66.4% on time across 1,811 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,813 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. October runs 88.8% on time and December 60.4%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,773 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUF to MCO questions
How often is BUF 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 24.6% of the 1,813 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 BUF to MCO?
JetBlue Airways leads at 78.1% on time across 562 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 75.0%, a gap of 3 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 BUF to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 60.1%, 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 December delays on BUF to MCO?
December is the weakest month at 60.4% on time, compared with 88.8% in October. 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 BUF — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- JetBlue Airways on BUF to MCO78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on BUF to MCO75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on BUF to MCO71.3%
- BUF to ORD, a related route74.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- BUF to BWI, a related route87.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record71.3%
- 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. BUF to MCO and MCO to BUF 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.