Route reliability record
MCO→LGA
Orlando to New York
- Flights
- 5,149
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 950 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about two flights in three arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 5,149 MCO to LGA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,162 at 75.7% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 76.6%, against 67.5% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.7% on time across 2,162 flights.
Key figures
On time
67.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,894 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
75.7% on time across 2,162 flights
These figures cover 5,149 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.1% 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 LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 75.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 58.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 901 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,162 | 75.7% | 75 min | 4.53% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 338 | 68.8% | 69 min | 4.14% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 544 | 63.5% | 68 min | 6.07% | D− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,204 | 61.2% | 82 min | 4.07% | D− |
| American Airlines | 901 | 58.4% | 101 min | 3.22% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to LGA
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 New York
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 → ISPOrlando to Islip | JetBlue Airways | 85.3% | 86.3% | 1.20% | 8am–11am, Sun | B6 546 06:15 |
| 2. MCO → EWROrlando to Newark | United Airlines | 76.7% | 78.6% | 2.36% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 1643 14:37 |
| 3. MCO → JFKOrlando to New York | Delta Air Lines | 75.4% | 77.9% | 3.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2702 06:00 |
| 4. MCO → LGAOrlando to New York | Delta Air Lines | 72.3% | 75.7% | 4.53% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. MCO → JFKOrlando to New York | JetBlue Airways | 68.4% | 71.5% | 4.31% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 1184 06:00 |
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 42 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am534 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am630 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm1,207 flights66.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,260 flights65.8%
- 5pm–8pm1,202 flights51.1%
- 8pm–5am316 flights61.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 51.1% on time, against 93.4% 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 1,260 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 51.1%, a wide gap of 42.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am83.9%
- 11am–2pm66.8%
- 2–5pm65.8%
- 5–8pm51.1%
- 8pm–5am61.6%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 100%.
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.
July is the worst month at 55.8% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 86.4%. 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 521 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.9%, a spread of 20 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 129,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%Carrier
- 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 129,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 129,468 reported delay minutes.
41% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 53,000 minutes out of 129,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.33%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 actually costs
15.1% 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 950 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 70.1% on time across 5,149 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 5,149 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.33% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 4,894 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to LGA questions
How often is MCO to LGA delayed?
About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 32.5% of the 5,149 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 LGA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 75.7% on time across 2,162 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 58.4%, a gap of 17 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 51.1%, 42 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 LGA?
July is the weakest month at 55.8% on time, compared with 86.4% 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
- LGA to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to LGA75.7%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to LGA68.8%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to LGA63.5%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to LGA61.2%
- American Airlines on MCO to LGA58.4%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record68.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record63.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MCO to LGA and LGA 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.