Route reliability record
MCO→DTW
Orlando to Detroit
- Flights
- 3,594
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 957 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,594 MCO to DTW flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 494 at 77.9% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.3%, against 72.9% for the route overall.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 77.9% on time across 494 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,549 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
77.9% on time across 494 flights
These figures cover 3,594 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 77.9% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 771 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 494 | 77.9% | 57 min | 0.81% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,211 | 74.5% | 80 min | 0.86% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 771 | 67.9% | 67 min | 2.20% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 118 | 53.8% | 54 min | 0.85% | F+ |
Frontier leads Spirit by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to DTW
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 Detroit
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 → DTWOrlando to Detroit | Frontier Airlines | 77.3% | 77.9% | 0.81% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MCO → DTWOrlando to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 73.9% | 74.5% | 0.86% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1201 06:00 |
| 3. MCO → DTWOrlando to Detroit | Spirit Airlines | 66.4% | 67.9% | 2.20% | 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 33 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am616 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am538 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm651 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm868 flights62.8%
- 5pm–8pm474 flights58.0%
- 8pm–5am447 flights62.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% on time, against 90.7% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 868 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to DTW 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 DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.0%, a wide gap of 32.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.7%
- 8–11am88.0%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm62.8%
- 5–8pm58.0%
- 8pm–5am62.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
December is the weak month at 57.7% on time, against 88.3% in September. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 413 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.7%, a spread of 18 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 70,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 70,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 70,113 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 26,000 of the 70,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.7% 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 957 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 runs 75.4% on time across 3,600 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 3,594 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 DTW 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 88.3% on time and December 57.7%, a swing of 31 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,549 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to DTW questions
How often is MCO to DTW 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 27.1% of the 3,594 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 DTW?
Frontier Airlines leads at 77.9% on time across 494 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 10 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 DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.0%, 33 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 December delays on MCO to DTW?
December is the weakest month at 57.7% on time, compared with 88.3% in September. Across the year that is 31 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
- DTW to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to DTW77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to DTW74.5%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to DTW67.9%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to DTW53.8%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record74.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record67.9%
- 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 DTW and DTW 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.