Route reliability record
MCO→ALB
Orlando to Albany
- Flights
- 1,024
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,073 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,024 MCO to ALB flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 629 at 71.0% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to ALB: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 80.0%, against 68.9% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,010 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
71.0% on time across 629 flights
These figures cover 1,024 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.4% 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 MCO to ALB
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 629 | 71.0% | 57 min | 1.27% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 395 | 65.6% | 72 min | 1.27% | C |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 71.0%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to ALB
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Albany
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → ALBOrlando to Albany | Southwest Airlines | 70.1% | 71.0% | 1.27% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MCO → ALBOrlando to Albany | JetBlue Airways | 64.8% | 65.6% | 1.27% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | B6 2919 20:20 |
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 39 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am62 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am251 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm58 flights72.4%
- 2pm–5pm90 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm261 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am302 flights54.4%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.4% on time, against 93.5% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 302 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to ALB 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 MCO to ALB, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 54.4%, a wide gap of 39.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.5%
- 8–11am86.0%
- 11am–2pm72.4%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm62.6%
- 8pm–5am54.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 87.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. February was the busiest month here, with 114 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.8%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 20,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 19,840 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 93.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.4% 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 1,073 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.1% on time across 1,021 flights, 11 points above 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,024 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ALB after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,024 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 68.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,010 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to ALB questions
How often is MCO to ALB delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 31.1% of the 1,024 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to ALB?
Southwest Airlines leads at 71.0% on time across 629 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 65.6%, 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 MCO to ALB?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 54.4%, 39 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 March delays on MCO to ALB?
March is the weakest month at 55.2% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. Across the year that is 32 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
- ALB to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to ALB71.0%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to ALB65.6%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to ALB, a related route75.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.0%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record65.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. MCO to ALB and ALB to MCO 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.