Route reliability record
JFK→MCO
New York to Orlando
- Flights
- 4,804
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 944 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,804 JFK to MCO flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,980 at 76.2% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.5%, against 73.7% 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
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,600 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
76.2% on time across 1,980 flights
These figures cover 4,804 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,980 | 76.2% | 71 min | 3.23% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 232 | 75.9% | 75 min | 1.72% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,592 | 71.6% | 84 min | 4.44% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 4.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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.
- Delta 201909:0076.4% · 365 flights
- Delta 174019:5965.1% · 343 flights
- JetBlue 8312:0069.4% · 339 flights
- JetBlue 88309:2976.4% · 336 flights
- JetBlue 18308:1081.2% · 315 flights
- JetBlue 38320:0073.2% · 268 flights
- JetBlue 28318:4560.9% · 257 flights
- Delta 204907:0584.2% · 255 flights
- Delta 168515:0074.7% · 255 flights
- Delta 277511:4078.4% · 255 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → MCONewark to Orlando | United Airlines | 78.0% | 79.8% | 2.21% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2215 14:05 |
| 2. ISP → MCOIslip to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 75.4% | 76.7% | 1.68% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. JFK → MCONew York to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 73.7% | 76.2% | 3.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2049 07:05 |
| 4. EWR → MCONewark to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 72.5% | 75.8% | 4.38% | 5am–8am, Thu | B6 927 06:00 |
| 5. HPN → MCOWhite Plains to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 72.4% | 74.5% | 2.79% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 595 16:00 |
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 25 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am900 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am912 flights78.7%
- 11am–2pm1,037 flights79.0%
- 2pm–5pm698 flights68.8%
- 5pm–8pm629 flights59.9%
- 8pm–5am628 flights60.5%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 84.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,037 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.9%, a wide gap of 24.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.8%
- 8–11am78.7%
- 11am–2pm79.0%
- 2–5pm68.8%
- 5–8pm59.9%
- 8pm–5am60.5%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 60.6% on time, 25 points below May, the best at 85.2%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 484 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.9%, a spread of 18 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 95,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 95,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 95,319 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 33,000 of the 95,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.81%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 944 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 74.9% on time across 4,813 flights, within about 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 4,804 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.81% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,600 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to MCO questions
How often is JFK to MCO delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.3% of the 4,804 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 JFK to MCO?
Delta Air Lines leads at 76.2% on time across 1,980 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 71.6%, a gap of 5 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 JFK to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.9%, 25 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 JFK to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 60.6% on time, compared with 85.2% in May. Across the year that is 25 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to MCO76.2%
- Frontier Airlines on JFK to MCO75.9%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to MCO71.6%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record71.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to MCO and MCO to JFK 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.