Route reliability record
MCO→DCA
Orlando to Washington
- Flights
- 4,592
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 759 mi
- Carriers
- 5
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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,592 MCO to DCA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 710 at 76.2% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.7%, against 70.0% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.2% on time across 710 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,464 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.37%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
76.2% on time across 710 flights
These figures cover 4,592 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to DCA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 76.2% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 958 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 16 | 93.8% | 118 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 710 | 76.2% | 75 min | 3.80% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,815 | 72.0% | 88 min | 2.31% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,093 | 67.2% | 56 min | 1.74% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 958 | 64.8% | 72 min | 2.19% | D |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.8% 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 DCA
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Washington
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 43 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am451 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am955 flights83.1%
- 11am–2pm1,134 flights68.9%
- 2pm–5pm640 flights60.3%
- 5pm–8pm436 flights50.5%
- 8pm–5am976 flights62.4%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.5% on time, against 93.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,134 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to DCA 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 DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 50.5%, a wide gap of 43.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am83.1%
- 11am–2pm68.9%
- 2–5pm60.3%
- 5–8pm50.5%
- 8pm–5am62.4%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 100%.
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.
February is the weak month at 58.9% on time, against 77.4% in May. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 411 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.8%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 99,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 5%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 99,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 99,172 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 93.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.37% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.3% 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 759 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 75.2% on time across 4,593 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 4,592 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 DCA 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. May runs 77.4% on time and February 58.9%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 4,464 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to DCA questions
How often is MCO to DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.0% of the 4,592 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 DCA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 76.2% on time across 710 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 64.8%, a gap of 11 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 DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 50.5%, 43 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 February delays on MCO to DCA?
February is the weakest month at 58.9% on time, compared with 77.4% in May. 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
- DCA to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to DCA76.2%
- American Airlines on MCO to DCA72.0%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to DCA67.2%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to DCA64.8%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record93.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.2%
- American Airlines on-time record72.0%
- 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 DCA and DCA to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MCO to DCA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.