Carrier route record
WNMCO→MKE
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Milwaukee
- Flights
- 1,129
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to MKE sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,129 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MCO to MKE runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,114 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.9%
Every carrier on MCO to MKE, 1,408 flights
These figures cover 1,129 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 MKE
Southwest flew 1,129 of the 1,408 flights on MCO to MKE, most of the route. Its 68.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 81.8% to Southwest at 68.9%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 81.8% | 58 min | 1.85% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 117 | 76.1% | 82 min | 3.42% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,129 | 68.9% | 51 min | 0.89% | 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 44 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–8am138 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am261 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm101 flights67.3%
- 2pm–5pm195 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm161 flights52.5%
- 8pm–5am273 flights50.0%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 94.2% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 273 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to MKE through the year
August is the worst month at 52.2% on time, 29 points below November, the best at 80.9%. 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 131 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 65.2%. 11 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 49% of the 18,000 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 17,521 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, 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 costs
8.4% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,066 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 76.3% on time across 1,129 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,129 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on MCO to MKE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 80.9% on time and August 52.2%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,114 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to MKE, every carrier
- Southwest on MKE to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to MKE81.8%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to MKE76.1%
- 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.