Route reliability record
DEN→MCO
Denver to Orlando
- Flights
- 4,582
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,547 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in four arrive 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 4,582 flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,780 at 81.8% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.8% on time across 1,780 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,533 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
United
81.8% on time across 1,780 flights
These figures cover 4,582 flights between June 2025 and May 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
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,987 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,780 | 81.8% | 74 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 815 | 74.0% | 72 min | 1.23% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,987 | 72.9% | 51 min | 0.70% | C+ |
United leads Southwest by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am559 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am1,372 flights80.8%
- 11am–2pm326 flights73.1%
- 2pm–5pm800 flights66.6%
- 5pm–8pm773 flights64.9%
- 8pm–5am752 flights83.0%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.9% on time, against 89.8% 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.
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 63.3% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 87.8%. 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.8%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 66,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 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 largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 25,000 of the 66,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.80% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,547 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 78.7% on time across 4,575 flights, within 2 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 4,582 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 87.8% on time and June 63.3%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
DEN to MCO questions
How often is DEN to MCO delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.4% of the 4,582 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MCO?
United Airlines leads at 81.8% on time across 1,780 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.9%, a gap of 9 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 DEN to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.9%, 25 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 DEN to MCO?
June is the weakest month at 63.3% on time, compared with 87.8% in November. 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 DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.9%
- 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. DEN to MCO and MCO to DEN are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.