Route reliability record
FLL→MCO
Fort Lauderdale to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,446
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 177 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 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 1,446 FLL to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 627 at 86.7% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.5%, against 78.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,429 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
86.7% on time across 627 flights
These figures cover 1,446 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 86.7% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 72.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 736 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 627 | 86.7% | 66 min | 1.28% | A |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 83 | 75.9% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 736 | 72.0% | 66 min | 1.09% | C |
The spread between Southwest and Spirit is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Orlando
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → MCOFort Lauderdale to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 85.6% | 86.7% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MIA → MCOMiami to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 85.1% | 85.8% | 0.87% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. FLL → MCOFort Lauderdale to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 71.2% | 72.0% | 1.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. MIA → MCOMiami to Orlando | American Airlines | 68.4% | 69.2% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2803 20:05 |
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 35 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am582 flights92.0%
- 8am–11am122 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm101 flights67.3%
- 2pm–5pm40 flights57.5%
- 5pm–8pm365 flights66.5%
- 8pm–5am236 flights68.4%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.0% of the time, against 57.5% for the afternoon window. That is 35 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 582 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.2%. 17 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 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%National Airspace System
- 33%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 6,796 minutes out of 20,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 19,976 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 177 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.2% on time across 1,448 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,446 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. September runs 90.8% on time and March 56.6%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,429 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to MCO questions
How often is FLL to MCO delayed?
About 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 21.4% of the 1,446 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 86.7% on time across 627 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 72.0%, a gap of 15 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 FLL to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 57.5%, 35 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 March delays on FLL to MCO?
March is the weakest month at 56.6% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 34 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 FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to MCO86.7%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to MCO72.0%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- FLL to EWR, a related route70.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record86.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. FLL to MCO and MCO to FLL 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.