Route reliability record
DEN→MCO
Denver to Orlando
- Flights
- 4,528
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,547 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,528 DEN to MCO flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,713 at 82.7% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.3%, against 77.8% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.7% on time across 1,713 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,473 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
82.7% on time across 1,713 flights
These figures cover 4,528 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 82.7% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 899 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,713 | 82.7% | 77 min | 0.35% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,916 | 74.8% | 50 min | 0.89% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 899 | 74.6% | 68 min | 0.89% | C+ |
United leads Frontier by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN 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 Denver to Orlando
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → MCODenver to Orlando | United Airlines | 82.4% | 82.7% | 0.35% | 8pm–5am, Sun | UA 2292 08:10 |
| 2. DEN → MCODenver to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 74.1% | 74.8% | 0.89% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 3. DEN → MCODenver to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 73.9% | 74.6% | 0.89% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3312 09:25 |
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 26 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am621 flights91.4%
- 8am–11am1,298 flights82.9%
- 11am–2pm297 flights73.5%
- 2pm–5pm773 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm785 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am754 flights82.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 26 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 1,298 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN 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 DEN to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.9%, a wide gap of 25.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.4%
- 8–11am82.9%
- 11am–2pm73.5%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm65.9%
- 8pm–5am82.3%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
August is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 19 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 7 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 61,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 to one. The split is drawn from 61,413 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.8% 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 about an hour, 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 80.3% on time across 4,523 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 4,528 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. November runs 87.8% on time and August 68.4%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,473 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.2% of the 4,528 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to MCO?
United Airlines leads at 82.7% on time across 1,713 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 74.6%, a gap of 8 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 91.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 26 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 August delays on DEN to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 87.8% in November. Across the year that is 19 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 DEN to MCO82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to MCO74.8%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to MCO74.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- United Airlines on-time record82.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.6%
- 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.
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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.