Route reliability record

DEN→MCO

Denver to Orlando

Flights: 4,583
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 1,547 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 4,583 flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,762 at 82.2% on time.

United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.2% on time across 1,762 flights.

On time

77.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,533 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.63%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

United

82.2% on time across 1,762 flights

These figures cover 4,583 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

Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MCO

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,971 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DEN to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,762	82.2%	76 min	0.40%	B+
Frontier Airlines	850	74.7%	67 min	1.06%	C
Southwest Airlines	1,971	73.7%	50 min	0.66%	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–8am583 flights90.9%
8am–11am1,357 flights81.5%
11am–2pm315 flights72.4%
2pm–5pm792 flights66.8%
5pm–8pm775 flights65.6%
8pm–5am761 flights83.0%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 65.6% for the evening window. That is 25 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 1,357 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 21 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.

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

July is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 21 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. March was the busiest month here, with 468 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.7%. 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 64,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
39%
Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
0%

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 64,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 63,661 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 24,000 of the 64,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.63%, below the national 1.81% 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

7.2% 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 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 79.0% on time across 4,579 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 4,583 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 July 66.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,533 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DEN to MCO questions

How often is DEN to MCO delayed?

Roughly 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 22.9% of the 4,583 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MCO?

United Airlines leads at 82.2% on time across 1,762 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.7%, 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 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.6%, 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 July delays on DEN to MCO?

July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 87.8% in November. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures