Carrier route record
WNMCO→BDL
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Hartford
- Flights
- 640
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 640 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on MCO to BDL runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 68 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 627 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on MCO to BDL, 1,867 flights
These figures cover 640 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to BDL
Southwest flew 640 of the 1,867 flights on MCO to BDL, about 34% of it. Its 70.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 73.2% to Southwest at 70.5%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 73.2% | 105 min | 2.64% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,000 | 70.9% | 76 min | 2.30% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 640 | 70.5% | 58 min | 1.72% | C |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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.
- 5am–8am25 flights—
- 8am–11am257 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm30 flights73.3%
- 2pm–5pm17 flights—
- 5pm–8pm146 flights66.0%
- 8pm–5am165 flights49.4%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 49.4% on time, against 84.5% for the 8am–11am 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 257 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 80.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.0%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MCO to BDL runs when it is late
The 185 late arrivals split 77 under half an hour, 51 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 57 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early74 flights11.8%
- Within 15 min368 flights58.7%
- 15–29 min late77 flights12.3%
- 30–59 min late51 flights8.1%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights5.6%
- 2+ hours late22 flights3.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 627 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
41 of 191 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 21% of them. In the other direction, 35 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at BDL.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MCO to BDL
The latest arrival of the period was on 6 August 2026, 5 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across August, November, May, October and July, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 6 August 2026 | 5 hours 47 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 November 2025 | 5 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 12 May 2026 | 4 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 October 2025 | 4 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 July 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 11,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 to one. The split is drawn from 10,779 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.1% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.3% on time across 640 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 640 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. 640 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 70.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 627 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
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to BDL73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to BDL70.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.