Route reliability record
MCO→BWI
Orlando to Baltimore
- Flights
- 4,716
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 787 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 4,716 MCO to BWI flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 3,621 at 77.2% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to BWI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.1%, against 76.1% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.2% on time across 3,621 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,581 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.2% on time across 3,621 flights
These figures cover 4,716 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to BWI
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 77.2% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 70.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 453 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 3,621 | 77.2% | 59 min | 1.93% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 642 | 73.6% | 84 min | 3.74% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 453 | 70.4% | 64 min | 3.97% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.0% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to BWI
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 Baltimore
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → IADOrlando to Washington | United Airlines | 81.5% | 82.3% | 0.96% | 8am–11am, Wed | UA 2065 13:45 |
| 2. MCO → BWIOrlando to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 75.7% | 77.2% | 1.93% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MCO → DCAOrlando to Washington | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 76.2% | 3.80% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 1003 10:20 |
| 4. MCO → BWIOrlando to Baltimore | Frontier Airlines | 70.8% | 73.6% | 3.74% | 5am–8am, Thu | F9 3274 06:30 |
| 5. MCO → DCAOrlando to Washington | American Airlines | 70.3% | 72.0% | 2.31% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 30 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am693 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am996 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm565 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm700 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm1,047 flights64.7%
- 8pm–5am715 flights62.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.6% on time, against 92.7% 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 1,047 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to BWI 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 BWI, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.6%, a wide gap of 30.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.7%
- 8–11am85.1%
- 11am–2pm79.3%
- 2–5pm74.0%
- 5–8pm64.7%
- 8pm–5am62.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. April was the busiest month here, with 434 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 69,000 reported delay minutes.
- 35%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 69,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 69,257 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 787 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 75.5% on time across 4,707 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 4,716 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 BWI 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 90.3% on time and March 64.3%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 4,581 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to BWI questions
How often is MCO to BWI delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.9% of the 4,716 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to BWI?
Southwest Airlines leads at 77.2% on time across 3,621 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 70.4%, a gap of 7 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 BWI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.6%, 30 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 March delays on MCO to BWI?
March is the weakest month at 64.3% on time, compared with 90.3% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- BWI to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to BWI77.2%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to BWI73.6%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to BWI70.4%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ATL to BWI, a related route75.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.4%
- 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 BWI and BWI 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.