Carrier route record
WNMCO→BNA
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Nashville
- Flights
- 2,590
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 75%
- 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 BNA 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 roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 2,590 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCO to BNA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,556 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.4%
Every carrier on MCO to BNA, 3,469 flights
These figures cover 2,590 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 BNA
Southwest flew 2,590 of the 3,469 flights on MCO to BNA, most of the route. Its 74.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 77.9% to Spirit at 72.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 136 | 77.9% | 81 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 29 | 75.0% | 67 min | 3.45% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 2,590 | 74.8% | 53 min | 1.24% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 714 | 72.2% | 69 min | 4.76% | 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 40 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–8am326 flights96.6%
- 8am–11am608 flights88.5%
- 11am–2pm323 flights78.2%
- 2pm–5pm439 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm550 flights61.6%
- 8pm–5am344 flights56.4%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.4% on time, against 96.6% 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 608 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to BNA through the year
June is the worst month at 62.8% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 84.4%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 260 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 17 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 51% of the 34,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% 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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 34,252 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 96.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% 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 last roughly 55 minutes, 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 74.2% on time across 2,587 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 2,590 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 Southwest on MCO to BNA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.4% on time and June 62.8%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,556 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to BNA, every carrier
- Southwest on BNA to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to BNA77.9%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to BNA72.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Nashville International (BNA) 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.