Carrier route record

DLCVG→MCO

Delta Air Lines · Cincinnati to Orlando

Flights: 722
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 40%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on CVG 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 722 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on CVG to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 709 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.11%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on CVG to MCO, 1,783 flights

These figures cover 722 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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

Delta against every carrier on CVG to MCO

Delta flew 722 of the 1,783 flights on CVG to MCO, about 40% of it. Its 79.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 81.0% to Southwest at 78.0%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CVG to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlines	821	81.0%	91 min	1.22%	B
Delta Air Lines (this page)	722	79.3%	61 min	1.11%	B
Republic Airwaysthin sample	14	78.6%	42 min	0.00%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	226	78.0%	52 min	0.88%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on CVG to MCO

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 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–8am3 flights—
8am–11am362 flights86.3%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm357 flights72.1%
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.3% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 362 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on CVG to MCO through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 63.3% on time, 28 points below April, the best at 91.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 8,888 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.

Carrier
46%
National Airspace System
32%
Late-arriving aircraft
19%
Extreme weather
3%

The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,106 of the 8,888 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 8,888 reported delay minutes.

32% 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 2,866 minutes out of 8,888, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.69%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.5% 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 757 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 72.5% on time across 722 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 722 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 Delta on CVG to MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 722 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 79.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 709 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures