Route reliability record
MCO→CVG
Orlando to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 1,790
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 757 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,790 MCO to CVG flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 820 at 76.4% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to CVG: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.8%, against 74.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,758 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.62%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
76.4% on time across 820 flights
These figures cover 1,790 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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 CVG
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 820 | 76.4% | 79 min | 1.59% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 721 | 73.6% | 89 min | 1.66% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 72.7% | 61 min | 1.28% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 14 | 61.5% | 45 min | 7.14% | D− |
No carrier stands out. Frontier tops the table at 76.4%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to CVG
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 Cincinnati
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 → CVGOrlando to Cincinnati | Frontier Airlines | 75.2% | 76.4% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MCO → CVGOrlando to Cincinnati | Delta Air Lines | 72.4% | 73.6% | 1.66% | 11am–2pm, Wed | DL 511 11:15 |
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 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am50 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am234 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm566 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm223 flights61.8%
- 5pm–8pm457 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am260 flights70.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.8% of the time, against 61.8% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 566 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to CVG 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 CVG, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 61.8%, a wide gap of 28.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am84.1%
- 11am–2pm80.8%
- 2–5pm61.8%
- 5–8pm69.1%
- 8pm–5am70.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 85.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 184 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 35,569 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 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.62% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.8% 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.
The 757 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.6% on time across 1,791 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,790 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 CVG 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 85.8% on time and March 66.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,758 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to CVG questions
How often is MCO to CVG 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 25.3% of the 1,790 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to CVG?
Frontier Airlines leads at 76.4% on time across 820 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 73.6%, a gap of 3 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 CVG?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 61.8%, 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 March delays on MCO to CVG?
March is the weakest month at 66.5% on time, compared with 85.8% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- CVG to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to CVG76.4%
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to CVG73.6%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to CVG72.7%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to CVG, a related route72.1%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- 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 CVG and CVG 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.