Carrier route record
WNCMH→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Columbus to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,524
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 70%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CMH to MCO lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,524 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on CMH 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
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,499 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.05%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.9%
Every carrier on CMH to MCO, 2,168 flights
These figures cover 1,524 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on CMH to MCO
Southwest flew 1,524 of the 2,168 flights on CMH to MCO, most of the route. Its 80.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 82.1% to Spirit at 72.2%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 82.1% | 71 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,524 | 80.0% | 65 min | 1.05% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 229 | 72.6% | 103 min | 2.62% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 387 | 72.2% | 85 min | 2.33% | C |
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am424 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am195 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm212 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm289 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm293 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am111 flights68.8%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 66.7% for the evening window. That is 27 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 424 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CMH to MCO through the year
July is the worst month at 73.0% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 90.8%. 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 172 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 19,429 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.05% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.59%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.4% on time across 1,527 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,524 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on CMH to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.8% on time and July 73.0%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,499 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to CMH, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CMH to MCO72.6%
- Spirit Airlines on CMH to MCO72.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.