Route reliability record
MCO→CLE
Orlando to Cleveland
- Flights
- 2,066
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 895 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,066 MCO to CLE flights, of which United Airlines flew 561 at 86.5% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to CLE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 77.9% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,041 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
86.5% on time across 561 flights
These figures cover 2,066 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 86.5% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 74.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,189 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 561 | 86.5% | 70 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 310 | 76.5% | 50 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,189 | 74.3% | 78 min | 1.09% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 50.0% | 90 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between United and Frontier is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to CLE
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Cleveland
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → CLEOrlando to Cleveland | United Airlines | 86.0% | 86.5% | 0.53% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 2. MCO → CLEOrlando to Cleveland | Frontier Airlines | 73.5% | 74.3% | 1.09% | 8am–11am, Wed | F9 1915 05:01 |
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 28 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am213 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am219 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm560 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm437 flights76.5%
- 5pm–8pm367 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am270 flights59.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.6% on time, against 87.7% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 560 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 68.8% on time, against 89.9% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%. 17 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 56% of the 33,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 32,723 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 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.7% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 895 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 78.6% on time across 2,069 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 2,066 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 CLE 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 89.9% on time and December 68.8%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,041 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to CLE questions
How often is MCO to CLE delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.1% of the 2,066 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to CLE?
United Airlines leads at 86.5% on time across 561 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 74.3%, a gap of 12 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 CLE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.6%, 28 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 December delays on MCO to CLE?
December is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 89.9% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- CLE to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MCO to CLE86.5%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to CLE76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to CLE74.3%
- MCO to ATL, a related route75.6%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.1%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- United Airlines on-time record86.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. MCO to CLE and CLE 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.