Carrier route record
WNMCI→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Kansas City to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,254
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCI 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 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,254 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCI 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,241 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.1%
Every carrier on MCI to MCO, 1,559 flights
These figures cover 1,254 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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 MCI to MCO
Southwest flew 1,254 of the 1,559 flights on MCI to MCO, most of the route. Its 76.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 79.0% to Republic at 71.4%. 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 Airlinesthin sample | 277 | 79.0% | 83 min | 3.61% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,254 | 76.9% | 52 min | 0.56% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 71.4% | 56 min | 0.00% | 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 35 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–8am371 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am187 flights82.3%
- 11am–2pm189 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm229 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm168 flights57.3%
- 8pm–5am110 flights57.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.3% on time, against 91.9% 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 371 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCI to MCO through the year
June is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 26 points below November, the best at 91.9%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 125 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.6%. 18 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 15,000 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 14,941 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 91.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.56%, 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
6.2% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,072 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 71.1% on time across 1,256 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,254 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 MCI to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 91.9% on time and June 66.1%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,241 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to MCI, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on MCI to MCO79.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Kansas City International (MCI) 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.