Carrier route record
WNMCO→IND
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Indianapolis
- Flights
- 1,617
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to IND sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,617 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MCO to IND runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,592 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.36%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on MCO to IND, 2,404 flights
These figures cover 1,617 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to IND
Southwest flew 1,617 of the 2,404 flights on MCO to IND, most of the route. Its 72.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 82.1% to Republic at 55.6%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 335 | 82.1% | 101 min | 1.19% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 424 | 75.3% | 72 min | 2.36% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,617 | 72.6% | 58 min | 1.36% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 55.6% | 61 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 44 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am307 flights95.7%
- 8am–11am316 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm189 flights70.4%
- 2pm–5pm228 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm279 flights60.9%
- 8pm–5am298 flights51.9%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.9% on time, against 95.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 316 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to IND through the year
August is the worst month at 62.5% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 81.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 179 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.2%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
49% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 split is drawn from 25,137 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 95.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 829 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.6% on time across 1,623 flights, 7 points above 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,617 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 Southwest on MCO to IND
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 81.5% on time and August 62.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,592 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to IND, every carrier
- Southwest on IND to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to IND82.1%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to IND75.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Indianapolis International (IND) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.