Carrier route record
WNMCO→MEM
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Memphis
- Flights
- 444
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 58%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to MEM sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 444 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 MEM runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 63 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 435 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.03%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on MCO to MEM, 768 flights
These figures cover 444 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to MEM
Southwest flew 444 of the 768 flights on MCO to MEM, most of the route. Its 71.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 73.4% to Southwest at 71.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 324 | 73.4% | 70 min | 2.47% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 444 | 71.3% | 63 min | 2.03% | C |
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 36 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–8am4 flights—
- 8am–11am107 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm36 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm96 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm123 flights69.2%
- 8pm–5am78 flights51.3%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.3% on time, against 87.7% for the 8am–11am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 123 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to MEM through the year
July is the worst month at 64.1% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 89.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 51 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.3%. 18 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 62% of the 7,815 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
62% 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 7,815 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 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 7,815 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.03% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 684 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 77.8% on time across 444 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 444 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 MEM
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 444 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 71.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 435 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to MEM, every carrier
- Southwest on MEM to MCO, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to MEM73.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) 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.