Route reliability record
MCO→BDL
Orlando to Hartford
- Flights
- 1,867
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,050 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,867 MCO to BDL flights, of which JetBlue Airways flew 1,000 at 70.9% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to BDL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.4%, against 71.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 63 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,822 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
JetBlue
70.9% on time across 1,000 flights
These figures cover 1,867 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% 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 BDL
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 73.2% | 105 min | 2.64% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,000 | 70.9% | 76 min | 2.30% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 640 | 70.5% | 58 min | 1.72% | C |
No carrier stands out. JetBlue tops the table at 70.9%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to BDL
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 Hartford
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 → BDLOrlando to Hartford | Southwest Airlines | 69.3% | 70.5% | 1.72% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. MCO → BDLOrlando to Hartford | JetBlue Airways | 69.3% | 70.9% | 2.30% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 438 17:15 |
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 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am177 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am456 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm269 flights70.6%
- 2pm–5pm290 flights63.6%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am311 flights51.2%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.2% on time, against 92.5% 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 456 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to BDL 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 BDL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.2%, a wide gap of 41.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am83.3%
- 11am–2pm70.6%
- 2–5pm63.6%
- 5–8pm68.2%
- 8pm–5am51.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 41 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.
August is the worst month at 50.4% on time, 41 points below September, the best at 90.9%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 203 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 38,484 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 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.9% 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 1,050 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 runs 73.3% on time across 1,869 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,867 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 BDL 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 90.9% on time and August 50.4%, a swing of 41 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,822 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to BDL questions
How often is MCO to BDL delayed?
Roughly 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 29.0% of the 1,867 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 BDL?
JetBlue Airways leads at 70.9% on time across 1,000 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 70.5%, a gap of half a point. 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 BDL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.2%, 41 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 August delays on MCO to BDL?
August is the weakest month at 50.4% on time, compared with 90.9% in September. Across the year that is 41 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
- BDL to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to BDL73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to BDL70.9%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to BDL70.5%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to BDL, a related route74.5%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record70.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record70.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MCO to BDL and BDL 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.