Route reliability record
CLE→MCO
Cleveland to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,125
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 895 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,125 CLE to MCO flights, of which United Airlines flew 543 at 89.8% on time.
Best time to fly CLE to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.9%, against 79.4% 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,096 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
89.8% on time across 543 flights
These figures cover 2,125 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 CLE to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 89.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 76.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,256 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 543 | 89.8% | 70 min | 0.37% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,256 | 76.0% | 105 min | 1.35% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 325 | 75.5% | 86 min | 0.00% | B+ |
The spread between United and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLE 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 Cleveland 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. CLE → MCOCleveland to Orlando | United Airlines | 89.5% | 89.8% | 0.37% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2636 08:00 |
| 2. CLE → MCOCleveland to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 75.0% | 76.0% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 2668 06:00 |
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 23 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am362 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am587 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm487 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm286 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm225 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am178 flights67.4%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 66.4% for the evening window. That is 23 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 587 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLE 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 CLE to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.4%, a wide gap of 22.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.9%
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm78.4%
- 2–5pm70.2%
- 5–8pm66.4%
- 8pm–5am67.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
January is the weak month at 66.7% on time, against 89.5% in May. 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 235 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 42,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 41,866 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 88.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, 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 actually costs
9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 895 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 76.9% on time across 2,123 flights, within 3 points 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 2,125 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. May runs 89.5% on time and January 66.7%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 2,096 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to MCO questions
How often is CLE to MCO delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 2,125 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLE to MCO?
United Airlines leads at 89.8% on time across 543 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 76.0%, a gap of 14 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 CLE to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.4%, 23 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 January delays on CLE to MCO?
January is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 89.5% in May. Across the year that is 23 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 CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on CLE to MCO89.8%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to MCO76.0%
- Southwest Airlines on CLE to MCO75.5%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- CLE to ATL, a related route84.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- United Airlines on-time record89.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. CLE to MCO and MCO to CLE 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.