Carrier route record
WNBUF→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Buffalo to Orlando
- Flights
- 948
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on BUF to MCO 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 roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 948 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on BUF to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 937 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.74%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
75.4%
Every carrier on BUF to MCO, 1,813 flights
These figures cover 948 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
Southwest against every carrier on BUF to MCO
Southwest flew 948 of the 1,813 flights on BUF to MCO, most of the route. Its 75.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 78.1% to Frontier at 71.3%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 562 | 78.1% | 80 min | 3.38% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 948 | 75.0% | 52 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 303 | 71.3% | 98 min | 2.31% | C |
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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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am328 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am66 flights80.0%
- 11am–2pm166 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm125 flights58.7%
- 5pm–8pm236 flights58.2%
- 8pm–5am27 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.2% on time, against 92.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 328 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on BUF to MCO through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 85.5% 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 99 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.0%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on BUF to MCO runs when it is late
The 234 late arrivals split 96 under half an hour, 82 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 56 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early153 flights16.3%
- Within 15 min550 flights58.7%
- 15–29 min late96 flights10.2%
- 30–59 min late82 flights8.8%
- 1–2 hours late38 flights4.1%
- 2+ hours late18 flights1.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 937 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
62 of 238 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. In the other direction, 58 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MCO.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on BUF to MCO
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 December 2025, 7 hours 11 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across December, May and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 December 2025 | 7 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 11 May 2026 | 4 hours 43 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 3 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 29 May 2026 | 3 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 to one. The split is drawn from 12,129 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 92.1% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.74%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.0% 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 roughly 50 minutes, 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 65.3% on time across 949 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 948 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on BUF to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 948 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 75.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 937 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BUF to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to BUF, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on BUF to MCO78.1%
- Frontier Airlines on BUF to MCO71.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.