Carrier route record
WNLAX→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Los Angeles to Orlando
- Flights
- 330
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 9%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on LAX to MCO lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 30 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 330 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 833 at 89.1% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 89.1% on time across 833 flights.
Key figures
On time
77.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 330 completed flights
Avg delay
32 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on LAX to MCO, 3,487 flights
These figures cover 330 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 LAX to MCO
Southwest flew 330 of the 3,487 flights on LAX to MCO, about 9% of it. Its 77.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 89.1% to Frontier at 47.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 89.1% of the time; American Airlines manages 73.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 735 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 833 | 89.1% | 61 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 330 | 77.3% | 32 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,383 | 76.3% | 63 min | 1.16% | B |
| American Airlines | 735 | 73.3% | 76 min | 0.27% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 206 | 47.1% | 103 min | 0.97% | F+ |
The spread between United and American 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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 330 flights.
The overnight block holds up unusually well at 77.3% on time across 330 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 330 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on LAX to MCO through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 68.1%. 19 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 46% of the 2,429 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
46% 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 2,429 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 46 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 2,429 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are 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 1.2% 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 2,218 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 64.1% on time across 330 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 330 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 LAX to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 330 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 77.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 330 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to MCO89.1%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to MCO76.3%
- American Airlines on LAX to MCO73.3%
- Frontier Airlines on LAX to MCO47.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.