Carrier route record
WNMCO→LAS
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 960
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 49%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to LAS lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 960 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, JetBlue Airways, flew 470 at 90.2% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCO to LAS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 958 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.3%
Every carrier on MCO to LAS, 1,955 flights
These figures cover 960 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to LAS
Southwest flew 960 of the 1,955 flights on MCO to LAS, about 49% of it. Its 77.2% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 90.2% to Delta at 66.7%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. JetBlue Airways arrives on time 90.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 81.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 480 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airways | 470 | 90.2% | 67 min | 0.21% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 480 | 81.1% | 81 min | 1.46% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 960 | 77.2% | 53 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 42 | 76.2% | 58 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 3 | 66.7% | 19 min | 0.00% | C+ |
JetBlue leads Frontier by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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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 34 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am260 flights94.6%
- 8am–11am145 flights90.3%
- 11am–2pm79 flights69.6%
- 2pm–5pm196 flights69.7%
- 5pm–8pm238 flights60.8%
- 8pm–5am42 flights66.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.8% on time, against 94.6% 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 260 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to LAS through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 88.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MCO to LAS runs when it is late
The 218 late arrivals split 102 under half an hour, 60 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 56 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early232 flights24.2%
- Within 15 min508 flights53.0%
- 15–29 min late102 flights10.6%
- 30–59 min late60 flights6.3%
- 1–2 hours late33 flights3.4%
- 2+ hours late23 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 958 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 304 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 123 still arrived on time. 37 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MCO to LAS
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 4 hours 43 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 43 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 15 March 2026 | 4 hours 29 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 January 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 30 June 2026 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 August 2026 | 3 hours 38 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why Southwest 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one. The split is drawn from 11,477 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 94.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.8% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,039 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.1% on time across 1,006 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 960 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on MCO to LAS
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 960 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 77.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 958 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to LAS, every carrier
- Southwest on LAS to MCO, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to LAS90.2%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to LAS81.1%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.