Carrier route record
WNLAS→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Las Vegas to Orlando
- Flights
- 940
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 49%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAS to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 40 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 940 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 408 at 87.5% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on LAS to MCO runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 934 completed flights
Avg delay
40 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.21%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on LAS to MCO, 1,906 flights
These figures cover 940 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on LAS to MCO
Southwest flew 940 of the 1,906 flights on LAS to MCO, about 49% of it. Its 73.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 87.5% to Delta at 33.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 87.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 71.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 458 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 408 | 87.5% | 69 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 940 | 73.3% | 40 min | 0.21% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 458 | 71.6% | 87 min | 0.44% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 97 | 64.9% | 64 min | 0.00% | D+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 3 | 33.3% | 31 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between JetBlue and Frontier is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 41 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am178 flights80.7%
- 8am–11am151 flights78.8%
- 11am–2pm152 flights52.0%
- 2pm–5pm76 flights42.1%
- 5pm–8pm18 flights—
- 8pm–5am365 flights83.6%
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 83.6% on time across 365 flights. Red-eyes fly into empty airspace and empty gates, and they are the first rotation of the aircraft's day rather than the last. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAS to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 66.2%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 9,948 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,848 of the 9,948 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,948 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.21%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,039 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 75.9% on time across 930 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 940 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on LAS to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 940 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 73.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 934 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAS to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to LAS, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on LAS to MCO87.5%
- Frontier Airlines on LAS to MCO71.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- 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
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.