Route reliability record
MCO→ATL
Orlando to Atlanta
- Flights
- 8,259
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 404 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 8,259 MCO to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 5,531 at 78.3% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.6%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 78.3% on time across 5,531 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 8,111 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.3% on time across 5,531 flights
These figures cover 8,259 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% 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 ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 65.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 369 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 5,531 | 78.3% | 88 min | 1.39% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,093 | 69.9% | 64 min | 1.56% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,266 | 67.2% | 76 min | 2.21% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 369 | 65.1% | 65 min | 3.79% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.8% 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 MCO to ATL
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 165812:0579.9% · 365 flights
- Delta 121311:0083.1% · 365 flights
- Delta 149406:1594.2% · 364 flights
- Delta 66413:0579.2% · 363 flights
- Delta 115017:3058.0% · 363 flights
- Delta 208007:0089.6% · 361 flights
- Delta 146308:0088.6% · 361 flights
- Delta 103014:0573.0% · 358 flights
- Delta 137216:2064.7% · 358 flights
- Delta 150509:0088.9% · 356 flights
- Delta 220410:0088.3% · 331 flights
- Frontier 402517:1055.2% · 308 flights
- Frontier 156305:1582.2% · 305 flights
- Delta 149719:5066.9% · 301 flights
- Delta 157615:1572.9% · 271 flights
- Frontier 124109:5667.1% · 263 flights
- Delta 154805:3094.7% · 251 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Atlanta
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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DAB → ATLDaytona Beach to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 86.8% | 88.3% | 1.73% | 11am–2pm, Thu | DL 3035 11:32 |
| 2. MLB → ATLMelbourne to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 85.4% | 86.7% | 1.45% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2953 06:00 |
| 3. MCO → ATLOrlando to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 77.2% | 78.3% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1548 05:30 |
| 4. MCO → ATLOrlando to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 68.8% | 69.9% | 1.56% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 5. MCO → ATLOrlando to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 65.7% | 67.2% | 2.21% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 1563 05:15 |
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 34 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,325 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am1,706 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm1,408 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,645 flights66.4%
- 5pm–8pm1,423 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am752 flights64.8%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 91.5% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 1,706 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to ATL 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 ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.0%, a wide gap of 33.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.5%
- 8–11am84.8%
- 11am–2pm79.6%
- 2–5pm66.4%
- 5–8pm58.0%
- 8pm–5am64.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 62.9% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 83.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 782 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 163,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 163,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 163,416 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 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% 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.
At 404 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.3% on time across 8,267 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 8,259 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 ATL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 83.3% on time and July 62.9%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 8,111 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to ATL questions
How often is MCO to ATL 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 25.1% of the 8,259 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 MCO to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.3% on time across 5,531 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 65.1%, a gap of 13 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 ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.0%, 34 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 MCO to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 83.3% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- ATL to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to ATL78.3%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to ATL69.9%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to ATL67.2%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to ATL65.1%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- MCO to ORD, a related route71.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record67.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCO to ATL and ATL 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.