Carrier route record
WNDCA→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Washington to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,097
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DCA to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,097 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 713 at 78.0% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.0% on time across 713 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,080 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on DCA to MCO, 4,588 flights
These figures cover 1,097 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DCA to MCO
Southwest flew 1,097 of the 4,588 flights on DCA to MCO, about 24% of it. Its 73.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.0% to JetBlue at 71.6%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 71.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 945 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 | 713 | 78.0% | 88 min | 3.65% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,818 | 76.5% | 92 min | 2.37% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,097 | 73.1% | 68 min | 1.37% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 945 | 71.6% | 83 min | 1.69% | C |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.6% 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.
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 46 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am337 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am46 flights93.3%
- 11am–2pm346 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm68 flights47.1%
- 5pm–8pm300 flights54.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.3% of the time, against 47.1% for the afternoon window. That is 46 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 346 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DCA to MCO through the year
July is the worst month at 58.2% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 83.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 97 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.2%. 17 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 43% of the 20,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 19,850 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. 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 67.7% on time across 1,097 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 1,097 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 DCA to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 83.1% on time and July 58.2%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,080 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to DCA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DCA to MCO78.0%
- American Airlines on DCA to MCO76.5%
- JetBlue Airways on DCA to MCO71.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.