Route reliability record

MCO→BNA

Orlando to Nashville

Flights: 3,469
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 616 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,469 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,590 at 74.8% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

74.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,400 completed flights

Avg delay

58 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.93%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Southwest

74.8% on time across 2,590 flights

These figures cover 3,469 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on MCO to BNA

The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MCO to BNA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	136	77.9%	81 min	0.00%	B+
Republic Airwaysthin sample	29	75.0%	67 min	3.45%	B−
Southwest Airlines	2,590	74.8%	53 min	1.24%	C
Spirit Airlines	714	72.2%	69 min	4.76%	C−

Spirit Airlines cancels 4.8% 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.

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 38 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am399 flights95.3%
8am–11am759 flights86.8%
11am–2pm450 flights78.9%
2pm–5pm612 flights68.9%
5pm–8pm781 flights63.3%
8pm–5am468 flights57.7%

Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.7% on time, against 95.3% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 781 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 19 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 64.8% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 83.8%. 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 328 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.1%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 43% of the 50,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
43%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
1%

43% 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 50,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 50,152 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 95.3% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.5% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 616 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 runs 75.0% on time across 3,465 flights, within half a point 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 3,469 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.

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 83.8% on time and June 64.8%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,400 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MCO to BNA questions

How often is MCO to BNA delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.6% of the 3,469 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on MCO to BNA?

Southwest Airlines leads at 74.8% on time across 2,590 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 72.2%, a gap of 3 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 BNA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.7%, 38 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 June delays on MCO to BNA?

June is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 83.8% in September. Across the year that is 19 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MCO to BNA and BNA to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures