Carrier route record
WNCLE→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Cleveland to Orlando
- Flights
- 325
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 15%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CLE 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 325 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 543 at 89.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on CLE 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 322 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.4%
Every carrier on CLE to MCO, 2,125 flights
These figures cover 325 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on CLE to MCO
Southwest flew 325 of the 2,125 flights on CLE to MCO, about 15% of it. Its 75.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to Southwest at 75.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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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 33 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am8 flights—
- 8am–11am42 flights90.5%
- 11am–2pm191 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm44 flights62.8%
- 5pm–8pm40 flights57.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.5% on time, against 90.5% for the 8am–11am 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 191 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CLE to MCO through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 84.8% 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 37 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.3%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on CLE to MCO runs when it is late
Southwest on CLE to MCO often beats the schedule: 82 of 322 completed flights, 25%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 79 late arrivals split 26 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early82 flights25.5%
- Within 15 min161 flights50.0%
- 15–29 min late26 flights8.1%
- 30–59 min late23 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late19 flights5.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 322 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
11 of 71 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. In the other direction, 19 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 CLE to MCO
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 April 2026, 10 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 April 2026 | 10 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 August 2026 | 7 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 January 2026 | 7 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 4 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 7 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
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 6,767 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,767 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 6,767 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.3% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.6% on time across 325 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 325 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 CLE to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 325 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 75.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 322 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to CLE, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLE to MCO89.8%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to MCO76.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.