Route reliability record
BWI→MCO
Baltimore to Orlando
- Flights
- 4,707
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 787 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 4,707 BWI to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 3,614 at 76.8% on time.
Best time to fly BWI to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.8%, against 75.5% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.8% on time across 3,614 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,568 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.8% on time across 3,614 flights
These figures cover 4,707 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 BWI to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 76.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 641 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 3,614 | 76.8% | 63 min | 2.24% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 452 | 71.1% | 77 min | 3.32% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 641 | 70.8% | 86 min | 4.21% | C− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 4.2% 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 BWI 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 Baltimore 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → MCOWashington to Orlando | United Airlines | 81.7% | 82.5% | 0.91% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1926 09:45 |
| 2. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | American Airlines | 75.7% | 77.6% | 2.42% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. BWI → MCOBaltimore to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.8% | 2.24% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 75.0% | 77.8% | 3.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1003 06:59 |
| 5. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 71.7% | 73.2% | 2.01% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 25 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am558 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am1,158 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm747 flights76.2%
- 2pm–5pm859 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm817 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am568 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 65.1% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,158 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI 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 BWI to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.1%, a wide gap of 25.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.3%
- 8–11am82.1%
- 11am–2pm76.2%
- 2–5pm72.2%
- 5–8pm65.1%
- 8pm–5am65.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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 62.8% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 87.0%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 435 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%, 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 77,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 26,000 minutes out of 77,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 76,794 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 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 787 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 76.1% on time across 4,716 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 4,707 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 87.0% on time and July 62.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,568 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to MCO questions
How often is BWI 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 24.5% of the 4,707 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 BWI to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 76.8% on time across 3,614 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 70.8%, a gap of 6 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 BWI to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.1%, 25 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 BWI to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 87.0% in September. Across the year that is 24 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 BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on BWI to MCO76.8%
- Spirit Airlines on BWI to MCO71.1%
- Frontier Airlines on BWI to MCO70.8%
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- BWI to BOS, a related route74.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record71.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BWI to MCO and MCO to BWI 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.