Route reliability record
MCO→DFW
Orlando to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 4,892
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 985 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 4,892 MCO to DFW flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 816 at 78.0% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.9%, against 74.5% for the route overall.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.0% on time across 816 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,745 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.56%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
78.0% on time across 816 flights
These figures cover 4,892 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 DFW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 70.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 403 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 816 | 78.0% | 64 min | 1.59% | B |
| American Airlines | 3,673 | 74.2% | 88 min | 2.61% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 403 | 70.8% | 60 min | 3.97% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 4.0% 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 DFW
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 Dallas-Fort Worth
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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → DFWOrlando to Dallas-Fort Worth | Frontier Airlines | 76.8% | 78.0% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 4017 05:40 |
| 2. MCO → DFWOrlando to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 72.3% | 74.2% | 2.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2075 09:30 |
| 3. MCO → DALOrlando to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 71.9% | 73.2% | 1.78% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. MCO → DFWOrlando to Dallas-Fort Worth | Spirit Airlines | 68.0% | 70.8% | 3.97% | 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 38 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,205 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am1,001 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm762 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm900 flights63.3%
- 5pm–8pm896 flights52.3%
- 8pm–5am128 flights64.2%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.3% on time, against 89.8% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,205 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 52.3%, a wide gap of 37.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm63.3%
- 5–8pm52.3%
- 8pm–5am64.2%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
June is the worst month at 65.7% on time, 15 points below September, the best at 81.0%. 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 451 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 99,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 7%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 99,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 98,739 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 run at 2.56%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.3% 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 985 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 64.5% on time across 4,892 flights, 10 points below 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,892 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 DFW 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 81.0% on time and June 65.7%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 4,745 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to DFW questions
How often is MCO to DFW 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 25.5% of the 4,892 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 DFW?
Frontier Airlines leads at 78.0% on time across 816 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 70.8%, a gap of 7 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 DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 52.3%, 38 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 June delays on MCO to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 65.7% on time, compared with 81.0% in September. Across the year that is 15 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
- DFW to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to DFW78.0%
- American Airlines on MCO to DFW74.2%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to DFW70.8%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.0%
- American Airlines on-time record74.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record70.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCO to DFW and DFW 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.