Carrier route record
DLMCO→JFK
Delta Air Lines · Orlando to New York
- Flights
- 1,981
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MCO to JFK carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,981 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on MCO to JFK from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,912 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.9%
Every carrier on MCO to JFK, 4,813 flights
These figures cover 1,981 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MCO to JFK
Delta flew 1,981 of the 4,813 flights on MCO to JFK, about 41% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 87.3% to JetBlue at 71.5%. One 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 | 232 | 87.3% | 71 min | 1.72% | A |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,981 | 77.9% | 83 min | 3.23% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,600 | 71.5% | 85 min | 4.31% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MCO to JFK
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.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 37 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am516 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am91 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm487 flights77.9%
- 2pm–5pm381 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm239 flights71.1%
- 8pm–5am267 flights55.7%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.7% on time, against 92.7% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 516 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MCO to JFK through the year
July is the worst month at 63.7% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 89.3%. 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 187 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MCO to JFK runs when it is late
Delta on MCO to JFK often beats the schedule: 646 of 1,912 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 423 late arrivals split 111 under half an hour, 129 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 183 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early646 flights33.8%
- Within 15 min843 flights44.1%
- 15–29 min late111 flights5.8%
- 30–59 min late129 flights6.7%
- 1–2 hours late99 flights5.2%
- 2+ hours late84 flights4.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,912 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
104 of 450 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 77 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MCO to JFK
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 February 2026, 13 hours 45 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 February 2026 | 13 hours 45 minutes | Carrier |
| 31 May 2026 | 13 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 July 2026 | 12 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 July 2026 | 9 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 January 2026 | 7 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 35,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 35,256 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.23%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 costs
9.6% 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 944 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 76.2% on time across 1,980 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 1,981 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 Delta on MCO to JFK
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.23% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,912 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to JFK, every carrier
- Delta on JFK to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to JFK87.3%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to JFK71.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.