Carrier route record
WNIND→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Indianapolis to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,623
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on IND to MCO lands a B+, 2 points 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 1,623 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on IND 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,599 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.6%
Every carrier on IND to MCO, 2,408 flights
These figures cover 1,623 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on IND to MCO
Southwest flew 1,623 of the 2,408 flights on IND to MCO, most of the route. Its 79.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 84.7% to Frontier at 73.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 421 | 84.7% | 84 min | 2.14% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 82.1% | 33 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,623 | 79.6% | 61 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 336 | 73.2% | 116 min | 2.38% | C |
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 37 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am402 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am290 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm201 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm248 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm286 flights68.8%
- 8pm–5am196 flights57.5%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.5% on time, against 94.2% 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 402 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on IND to MCO through the year
August is the worst month at 70.1% on time, 19 points below February, the best at 88.8%. 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 178 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.7%. 13 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 59% of the 20,000 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.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
59% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 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 19,940 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% 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.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.6% on time across 1,617 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 1,623 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 IND to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 88.8% on time and August 70.1%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,599 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IND to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to IND, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on IND to MCO84.7%
- Frontier Airlines on IND to MCO73.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Indianapolis International (IND) 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.