Carrier route record
WNMCO→MHT
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Manchester
- Flights
- 492
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 61%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to MHT lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 492 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCO to MHT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 490 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on MCO to MHT, 804 flights
These figures cover 492 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 MHT
Southwest flew 492 of the 804 flights on MCO to MHT, most of the route. Its 76.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 79.9% to Southwest at 76.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 312 | 79.9% | 72 min | 1.28% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 492 | 76.1% | 56 min | 0.20% | B+ |
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 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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am26 flights—
- 8am–11am204 flights85.7%
- 11am–2pm73 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm29 flights—
- 5pm–8pm84 flights56.0%
- 8pm–5am76 flights65.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.0% on time, against 85.7% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 204 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to MHT through the year
August is the worst month at 48.6% on time, 43 points below November, the best at 91.2%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 66 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MCO to MHT runs when it is late
The 117 late arrivals split 52 under half an hour, 39 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early87 flights17.8%
- Within 15 min286 flights58.4%
- 15–29 min late52 flights10.6%
- 30–59 min late39 flights8.0%
- 1–2 hours late14 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late12 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 490 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
27 of 120 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 24 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MCO to MHT
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 October 2025, 6 hours 16 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across October, August, May and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 October 2025 | 6 hours 16 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 August 2026 | 6 hours 3 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 2 May 2026 | 4 hours 41 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 May 2026 | 4 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 June 2026 | 3 hours 28 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 6,521 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 2%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,521 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 6,521 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 85.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.20%, below the national 1.89% 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 costs
5.3% 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 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.
The return leg runs 78.1% on time across 492 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 492 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 MHT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 492 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 490 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to MHT, every carrier
- Southwest on MHT to MCO, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to MHT79.9%
- 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 7.05 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.