Route reliability record
MCO→DEN
Orlando to Denver
- Flights
- 4,575
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,547 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,575 flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,777 at 84.8% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 84.8% on time across 1,777 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,532 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
United
84.8% on time across 1,777 flights
These figures cover 4,575 flights between June 2025 and May 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.
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 84.8% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,985 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,777 | 84.8% | 86 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 813 | 82.1% | 64 min | 1.11% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,985 | 71.8% | 59 min | 0.35% | C+ |
The spread between United and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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 32 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am695 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am1,098 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm680 flights84.7%
- 2pm–5pm880 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm708 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am514 flights67.1%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 93.2% 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.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
July is the worst month at 67.7% on time, 18 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%. 9 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 65,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 65,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 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 93.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.80% 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
7.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the about an hour kind, 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 76.6% on time across 4,582 flights, within 2 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 4,575 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. April runs 85.7% on time and July 67.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else.
Common questions
MCO to DEN questions
How often is MCO to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.3% of the 4,575 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 84.8% on time across 1,777 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.8%, a gap of 13 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 93.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.8%, 32 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 DEN?
July is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 85.7% in April. Across the year that is 18 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-time record84.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.8%
- 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 DEN and DEN 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.