Route reliability record

MCO→CMH

Orlando to Columbus

Flights: 2,171
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 802 mi
Carriers: 4

This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,171 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 1,527 at 73.4% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 60 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,137 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.47%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Southwest

73.4% on time across 1,527 flights

These figures cover 2,171 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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 CMH

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 73.4% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 61.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 387 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on MCO to CMH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	229	78.2%	71 min	1.75%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,527	73.4%	58 min	1.18%	C
Spirit Airlines	387	61.8%	63 min	2.58%	D
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	53.6%	68 min	0.00%	F+

Southwest leads Spirit by 12 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 44 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am241 flights92.4%
8am–11am493 flights81.7%
11am–2pm198 flights74.7%
2pm–5pm407 flights73.5%
5pm–8pm484 flights63.9%
8pm–5am348 flights48.8%

Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.8% on time, against 92.4% 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 493 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, July worst

July is the worst month at 64.2% on time, 17 points below November, the best at 81.1%. 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 237 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 37,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
41%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
5%
Security
0%

41% 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 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 36,804 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 92.4% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 802 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.9% on time across 2,168 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,171 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. November runs 81.1% on time and July 64.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,137 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

MCO to CMH questions

How often is MCO to CMH delayed?

Roughly 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 28.4% of the 2,171 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 CMH?

Southwest Airlines leads at 73.4% on time across 1,527 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 61.8%, 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 CMH?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 48.8%, 44 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 July delays on MCO to CMH?

July is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 81.1% in November. 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. MCO to CMH and CMH 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