Route reliability record
CMH→MCO
Columbus to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,121
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 802 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,121 CMH to MCO flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CMH to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 77.5% 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,077 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.4% on time across 1,510 flights
These figures cover 2,121 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 CMH to MCO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 82.1% | 71 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,510 | 79.4% | 65 min | 1.13% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 280 | 73.0% | 98 min | 1.79% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 303 | 71.4% | 89 min | 2.97% | C |
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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 half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am531 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am291 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm319 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm355 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm412 flights66.2%
- 8pm–5am213 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 66.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 531 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CMH 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 CMH to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.2%, a wide gap of 24.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.7%
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm78.2%
- 2–5pm67.8%
- 5–8pm66.2%
- 8pm–5am68.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
August is the worst month at 67.5% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 85.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 238 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 35,030 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 90.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.61%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% 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 802 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 72.1% on time across 2,122 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,121 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 85.1% on time and August 67.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,077 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to MCO questions
How often is CMH to MCO delayed?
Roughly 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 22.5% of the 2,121 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CMH to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
77.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CMH to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.2%, 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 August delays on CMH to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 85.1% in September. Across the year that is 18 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 CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to MCO79.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CMH to MCO73.0%
- Spirit Airlines on CMH to MCO71.4%
- CMH to ORD, a related route75.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- CMH to ATL, a related route84.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.0%
- 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. CMH to MCO and MCO to CMH 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.