Route reliability record
DAL→MCO
Dallas to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,653
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 973 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,653 DAL to MCO flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
Best time to fly DAL to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.1%, against 70.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 69 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,594 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
70.4% on time across 2,653 flights
These figures cover 2,653 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 DAL 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,653 | 70.4% | 54 min | 1.55% | C |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Dallas to Orlando
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DFW → MCODallas-Fort Worth to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 72.6% | 74.2% | 2.09% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. DAL → MCODallas to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 69.3% | 70.4% | 1.55% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. DFW → MCODallas-Fort Worth to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 66.6% | 69.2% | 3.71% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. DFW → MCODallas-Fort Worth to Orlando | American Airlines | 60.2% | 61.8% | 2.56% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2186 18:45 |
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 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am556 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am559 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm326 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm509 flights57.6%
- 5pm–8pm550 flights56.3%
- 8pm–5am153 flights47.0%
Scale runs 40% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 47.0% on time, against 88.3% for the 5am–8am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 559 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DAL 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 DAL to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 47.0%, a wide gap of 41.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.3%
- 8–11am83.7%
- 11am–2pm71.3%
- 2–5pm57.6%
- 5–8pm56.3%
- 8pm–5am47.0%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
June is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 25 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 245 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 41,283 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 88.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.68%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 973 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 73.2% on time across 2,643 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 2,653 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 June 60.0%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,594 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DAL to MCO questions
How often is DAL to MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.6% of the 2,653 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DAL to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
70.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DAL to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 47.0%, 41 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 June delays on DAL to MCO?
June is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 85.1% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 DAL — the return legseparate record
- Dallas Love Field (DAL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- DAL to HOU, a related route74.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- DAL to ATL, a related route78.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.4%
- 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. DAL to MCO and MCO to DAL 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.