Route reliability record
MCO→IAD
Orlando to Washington
- Flights
- 2,181
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 758 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,181 MCO to IAD flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly MCO to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 98.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 82.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,154 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
82.3% on time across 1,874 flights
These figures cover 2,181 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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 IAD
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,874 | 82.3% | 79 min | 0.96% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 307 | 79.9% | 80 min | 2.28% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to IAD
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. 4 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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am75 flights98.6%
- 8am–11am671 flights91.4%
- 11am–2pm522 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm490 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm423 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 98.6% of the time, against 66.3% for the evening window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 671 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to IAD 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 IAD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 98.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 66.3%, a wide gap of 32.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am98.6%
- 8–11am91.4%
- 11am–2pm86.2%
- 2–5pm75.6%
- 5–8pm66.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 66.7% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 91.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 212 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 13 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 31,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 30,794 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 98.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 758 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 80.7% on time across 2,180 flights, within about a point 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 2,181 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 IAD 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 91.5% on time and July 66.7%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,154 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to IAD questions
How often is MCO to IAD delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.0% of the 2,181 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MCO to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
82.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 98.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.3%, 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 IAD?
July is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 91.5% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- IAD to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on MCO to IAD82.3%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to IAD79.9%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- United Airlines on-time record82.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.9%
- 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 IAD and IAD to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MCO to IAD’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.