Route reliability record
MCO→MHT
Orlando to Manchester
- Flights
- 868
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,142 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 868 MCO to MHT flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 502 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to MHT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.9%, against 78.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 862 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.6% on time across 502 flights
These figures cover 868 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to MHT
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 502 | 78.6% | 54 min | 0.20% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 366 | 77.8% | 64 min | 1.37% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.6%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to MHT
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Manchester
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → MHTOrlando to Manchester | Southwest Airlines | 78.4% | 78.6% | 0.20% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MCO → MHTOrlando to Manchester | JetBlue Airways | 76.7% | 77.8% | 1.37% | 8am–11am, Wed | B6 1144 11:15 |
| 3. MCO → BOSOrlando to Boston | Delta Air Lines | 74.3% | 76.0% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2436 07:00 |
| 4. MCO → BOSOrlando to Boston | Spirit Airlines | 66.6% | 69.3% | 3.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. MCO → BOSOrlando to Boston | JetBlue Airways | 65.2% | 67.3% | 3.13% | 5am–8am, Fri | B6 352 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 31 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am32 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am305 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm352 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm27 flights—
- 5pm–8pm75 flights62.7%
- 8pm–5am77 flights64.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.7% on time, against 93.8% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 352 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
February is the weak month at 60.3% on time, against 90.6% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 97 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 11,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
47% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 10,968 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.69%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 1,142 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 runs 77.6% on time across 868 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 868 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MHT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 868 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 862 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to MHT questions
How often is MCO to MHT delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 868 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to MHT?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.6% on time across 502 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 77.8%, a gap of about a point. 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 MHT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.7%, 31 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 February delays on MCO to MHT?
February is the weakest month at 60.3% on time, compared with 90.6% in September. Across the year that is 30 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
- MHT to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to MHT78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to MHT77.8%
- MCO to ATL, a related route75.6%
- BWI to MHT, a related route83.0%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record77.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MCO to MHT and MHT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.