Carrier route record
WNMCO→BDL
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Hartford
- Flights
- 647
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to BDL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 647 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MCO to BDL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 53 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 635 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.70%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.7%
Every carrier on MCO to BDL, 1,890 flights
These figures cover 647 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to BDL
Southwest flew 647 of the 1,890 flights on MCO to BDL, about 34% of it. Its 72.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 88.9% to Frontier at 69.6%. 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 | 9 | 88.9% | 48 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,011 | 73.6% | 74 min | 1.98% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 647 | 72.3% | 53 min | 1.70% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 223 | 69.6% | 101 min | 2.24% | 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 52 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–8am31 flights100.0%
- 8am–11am283 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm40 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm16 flights—
- 5pm–8pm131 flights68.3%
- 8pm–5am146 flights48.3%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.3% on time, against 100.0% 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 283 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to BDL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 66 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 67.1%. 15 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 52% of the 9,369 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 9,369 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 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 9,369 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 100.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.70% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 79.5% on time across 647 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 647 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 MCO to BDL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 647 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 72.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 635 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to BDL, every carrier
- Southwest on BDL to MCO, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to BDL73.6%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to BDL69.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- 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.