Route reliability record
MCO→CLT
Orlando to Charlotte
- Flights
- 4,735
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 468 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 4,735 MCO to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 3,686 at 79.3% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 78.6% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.3% on time across 3,686 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,639 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.3% on time across 3,686 flights
These figures cover 4,735 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
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 79.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 370 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,686 | 79.3% | 89 min | 1.68% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 679 | 78.5% | 70 min | 1.33% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 370 | 72.5% | 66 min | 5.41% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.4% 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 CLT
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 Charlotte
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. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DAB → CLTDaytona Beach to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 80.9% | 83.8% | 3.44% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. MLB → CLTMelbourne to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 78.7% | 81.2% | 3.05% | 5am–8am, Tue | OH 5386 06:02 |
| 3. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | American Airlines | 78.0% | 79.3% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1896 05:00 |
| 4. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | Frontier Airlines | 77.5% | 78.5% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 1446 09:38 |
| 5. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | Spirit Airlines | 68.6% | 72.5% | 5.41% | 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 34 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am893 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am1,042 flights86.5%
- 11am–2pm846 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm1,154 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm653 flights58.6%
- 8pm–5am147 flights68.1%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.6% on time, against 92.5% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,154 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to CLT 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 CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.6%, a wide gap of 33.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am86.5%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm71.4%
- 5–8pm58.6%
- 8pm–5am68.1%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
August is the worst month at 70.5% on time, 17 points below September, the best at 87.2%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 466 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.5%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 83,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 83,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 83,377 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 92.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually 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.
At 468 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.6% on time across 4,734 flights, 7 points below 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,735 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 CLT 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 87.2% on time and August 70.5%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,639 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to CLT questions
How often is MCO to CLT delayed?
About 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 21.4% of the 4,735 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 79.3% on time across 3,686 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, 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 CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.6%, 34 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 August delays on MCO to CLT?
August is the weakest month at 70.5% on time, compared with 87.2% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- CLT to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MCO to CLT79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to CLT78.5%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to CLT72.5%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to CLT, a related route73.7%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- American Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. MCO to CLT and CLT 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.