Route reliability record
MCO→MSP
Orlando to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,942
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,310 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,942 MCO to MSP flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MCO to MSP: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.1%, against 77.6% 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,916 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.29%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
77.5% on time across 1,868 flights
These figures cover 1,942 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% 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
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to MSP
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 88.9% | 25 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 56 | 79.2% | 131 min | 5.36% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,868 | 77.5% | 93 min | 1.18% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to MSP
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.
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 33 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–8am418 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am144 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm352 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm498 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm364 flights62.6%
- 8pm–5am166 flights61.5%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 94.0% 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 498 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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 62.9% on time, 28 points below September, the best at 90.8%. 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 237 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%. 16 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 43% of the 40,000 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.
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
43% 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 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 40,084 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 16,000 of the 40,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.29% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.6% 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 1,310 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 75.5% on time across 1,940 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,942 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 MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.8% on time and July 62.9%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,916 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to MSP questions
How often is MCO to MSP delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.4% of the 1,942 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MCO to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
77.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to MSP?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.5%, 33 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 MSP?
July is the weakest month at 62.9% on time, compared with 90.8% in September. Across the year that is 28 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
- MSP to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- MCO to ATL, a related route75.6%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.7%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record88.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record77.5%
- 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 MSP and MSP 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.