Route reliability record
DCA→MCO
Washington to Orlando
- Flights
- 4,593
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 759 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 4,593 DCA to MCO flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 710 at 77.8% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.7%, against 75.2% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.8% on time across 710 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,453 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
77.8% on time across 710 flights
These figures cover 4,593 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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 DCA to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 77.8% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 70.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 960 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 15 | 80.0% | 91 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 710 | 77.8% | 86 min | 3.66% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,815 | 77.6% | 90 min | 2.42% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,093 | 73.2% | 67 min | 2.01% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 960 | 70.9% | 85 min | 2.71% | C |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to MCO
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → MCOWashington to Orlando | United Airlines | 81.7% | 82.5% | 0.91% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 1926 09:45 |
| 2. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | American Airlines | 75.7% | 77.6% | 2.42% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. BWI → MCOBaltimore to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.8% | 2.24% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 75.0% | 77.8% | 3.66% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1003 06:59 |
| 5. DCA → MCOWashington to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 71.7% | 73.2% | 2.01% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 32 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,186 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am833 flights83.6%
- 11am–2pm919 flights73.4%
- 2pm–5pm736 flights66.0%
- 5pm–8pm860 flights57.2%
- 8pm–5am59 flights74.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.2% on time, against 89.3% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,186 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DCA 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 DCA to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.2%, a wide gap of 32.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am83.6%
- 11am–2pm73.4%
- 2–5pm66.0%
- 5–8pm57.2%
- 8pm–5am74.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% 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.
December is the weak month at 65.3% on time, against 83.6% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. December was the busiest month here, with 412 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 91,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 2%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 91,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 91,118 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 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.57%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.5% 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 759 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 70.0% on time across 4,592 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 4,593 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. April runs 83.6% on time and December 65.3%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,453 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to MCO questions
How often is DCA to MCO delayed?
About 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 24.8% of the 4,593 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to MCO?
Delta Air Lines leads at 77.8% on time across 710 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 70.9%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.2%, 32 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 December delays on DCA to MCO?
December is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 83.6% in April. 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 DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DCA to MCO77.8%
- American Airlines on DCA to MCO77.6%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to MCO73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to MCO70.9%
- DCA to BOS, a related route70.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- DCA to ORD, a related route73.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.8%
- American Airlines on-time record77.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to MCO and MCO to DCA 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.