Carrier route record
WNDEN→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Denver to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,971
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 43%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DEN 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,971 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,762 at 82.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on DEN to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,951 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on DEN to MCO, 4,583 flights
These figures cover 1,971 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DEN to MCO
Southwest flew 1,971 of the 4,583 flights on DEN to MCO, about 43% of it. Its 73.7% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 82.2% to Southwest at 73.7%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 850 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| 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 (this page) | 1,971 | 73.7% | 50 min | 0.66% | C+ |
United leads Frontier by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 43 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am411 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am377 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm198 flights69.7%
- 2pm–5pm401 flights59.9%
- 5pm–8pm307 flights48.7%
- 8pm–5am277 flights91.3%
Scale runs 40% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 48.7% on time, against 91.5% 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 411 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DEN to MCO through the year
July is the worst month at 63.2% on time, 25 points below November, the best at 88.4%. 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 207 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 77.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.9%. 8 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 42% of the 26,000 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.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 25,792 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 8,777 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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 costs
7.0% 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 last about 50 minutes, 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 71.9% on time across 1,973 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 1,971 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 DEN to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 88.4% on time and July 63.2%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,951 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to DEN, the return leg
- United Airlines on DEN to MCO82.2%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to MCO74.7%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.