Route reliability record
IND→MCO
Indianapolis to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,459
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 829 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,459 IND to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,681 at 79.4% on time.
Best time to fly IND to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.4%, against 79.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,415 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.22%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.4% on time across 1,681 flights
These figures cover 2,459 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 IND to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 350 | 84.2% | 86 min | 2.29% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 82.1% | 33 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,681 | 79.4% | 59 min | 0.95% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 400 | 75.1% | 117 min | 1.50% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 79.4%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Indianapolis 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. IND → MCOIndianapolis to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 78.6% | 79.4% | 0.95% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. IND → MCOIndianapolis to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 74.0% | 75.1% | 1.50% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 29 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am509 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am433 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm374 flights84.9%
- 2pm–5pm332 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm543 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am268 flights65.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 93.4% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 543 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IND 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 IND to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.8%, a wide gap of 28.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am87.4%
- 11am–2pm84.9%
- 2–5pm76.5%
- 5–8pm64.8%
- 8pm–5am65.0%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 71.0%. February is the strongest month at 86.5%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 16 points. March was the busiest month here, with 273 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 14%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 to one. The split is drawn from 36,481 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 93.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.22% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.57%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% 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 829 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.7% on time across 2,452 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,459 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. February runs 86.5% on time and March 71.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,415 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IND to MCO questions
How often is IND 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 20.6% of the 2,459 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 IND to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 79.4% on time across 1,681 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 75.1%, a gap of 4 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 IND to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.8%, 29 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 IND to MCO?
March is the weakest month at 71.0% on time, compared with 86.5% in February. Across the year that is 16 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 IND — the return legseparate record
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on IND to MCO84.2%
- Southwest Airlines on IND to MCO79.4%
- Frontier Airlines on IND to MCO75.1%
- IND to ORD, a related route76.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- IND to ATL, a related route87.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record84.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.4%
- 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. IND to MCO and MCO to IND 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.