Route reliability record
MCO→DEN
Orlando to Denver
- Flights
- 4,523
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,547 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 4,523 MCO to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,709 at 87.0% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.1%, against 80.3% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 87.0% on time across 1,709 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,480 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.0% on time across 1,709 flights
These figures cover 4,523 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 87.0% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,918 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,709 | 87.0% | 80 min | 0.53% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 896 | 83.3% | 72 min | 0.89% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,918 | 73.0% | 56 min | 0.47% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 14 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 14 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to DEN
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 Denver
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 → DENOrlando to Denver | United Airlines | 86.5% | 87.0% | 0.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1520 12:50 |
| 2. MCO → DENOrlando to Denver | Frontier Airlines | 82.6% | 83.3% | 0.89% | 8am–11am, Tue | F9 1733 06:00 |
| 3. MCO → DENOrlando to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 72.7% | 73.0% | 0.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 29 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am709 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am1,127 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm726 flights83.6%
- 2pm–5pm832 flights72.5%
- 5pm–8pm676 flights64.3%
- 8pm–5am453 flights72.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.3% on time, against 93.3% 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 1,127 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to DEN 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 DEN, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.3%, a wide gap of 29.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.3%
- 8–11am88.6%
- 11am–2pm83.6%
- 2–5pm72.5%
- 5–8pm64.3%
- 8pm–5am72.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
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 68.8% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 85.7%. 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 467 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%, a spread of 11 points.
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 57,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 56,743 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 93.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,547 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 77.8% on time across 4,528 flights, within 3 points 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 4,523 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 DEN 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. April runs 85.7% on time and August 68.8%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 4,480 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to DEN questions
How often is MCO to DEN 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 19.7% of the 4,523 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 87.0% on time across 1,709 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 73.0%, a gap of 14 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 DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.3%, 29 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 DEN?
August is the weakest month at 68.8% on time, compared with 85.7% in April. 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
- DEN to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MCO to DEN87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to DEN83.3%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to DEN73.0%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- United Airlines on-time record87.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCO to DEN and DEN 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.