Route reliability record
IAH→MCO
Houston to Orlando
- Flights
- 3,569
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 854 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,569 IAH to MCO flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,443 at 86.5% on time.
Best time to fly IAH to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.3%, against 83.2% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 86.5% on time across 2,443 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,517 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
86.5% on time across 2,443 flights
These figures cover 3,569 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 IAH to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 86.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 580 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,443 | 86.5% | 71 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 546 | 79.7% | 72 min | 2.75% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 580 | 72.8% | 104 min | 1.55% | C |
The spread between United and Frontier is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH 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 Houston 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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → MCOHouston to Orlando | United Airlines | 86.0% | 86.5% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2245 07:20 |
| 2. IAH → MCOHouston to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 77.5% | 79.7% | 2.75% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. HOU → MCOHouston to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 76.4% | 77.0% | 0.78% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. IAH → MCOHouston to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 71.7% | 72.8% | 1.55% | 8am–11am, Tue | F9 1418 13:29 |
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 22 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am469 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am636 flights91.0%
- 11am–2pm634 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm747 flights80.7%
- 5pm–8pm715 flights78.7%
- 8pm–5am368 flights72.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.4% of the time, against 72.5% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 747 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH 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 IAH to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.5%, a wide gap of 21.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.4%
- 8–11am91.0%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm80.7%
- 5–8pm78.7%
- 8pm–5am72.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
July is the worst month at 67.2% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 90.0%. 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 366 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.3%, a spread of 9 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 47,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 26%Carrier
- 3%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 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 46,952 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 854 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 83.5% on time across 3,569 flights, within half a point 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 3,569 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 90.0% on time and July 67.2%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,517 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to MCO questions
How often is IAH to MCO delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.8% of the 3,569 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IAH to MCO?
United Airlines leads at 86.5% on time across 2,443 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of 14 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 IAH to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.5%, 22 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 IAH to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 90.0% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on IAH to MCO86.5%
- Spirit Airlines on IAH to MCO79.7%
- Frontier Airlines on IAH to MCO72.8%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- United Airlines on-time record86.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record72.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. IAH to MCO and MCO to IAH 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.