Carrier route record

WNMCO→ORF

Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Norfolk

Flights: 382
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 47%
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 ORF sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 382 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCO to ORF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 377 completed flights

Avg delay

47 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.31%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

72.7%

Every carrier on MCO to ORF, 808 flights

These figures cover 382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on MCO to ORF

Southwest flew 382 of the 808 flights on MCO to ORF, about 47% of it. Its 75.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 82.1% to Spirit at 60.4%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MCO to ORF
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	182	82.1%	78 min	1.65%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)	382	75.6%	47 min	1.31%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	244	60.4%	63 min	6.97%	D−

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 31 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–8am16 flights—
8am–11am171 flights84.7%
11am–2pm82 flights81.7%
2pm–5pm26 flights—
5pm–8pm60 flights54.2%
8pm–5am27 flights—

Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 84.7% 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 171 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MCO to ORF through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 66.7% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 96.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 35 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 58.0%. 29 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 47% of the 4,331 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
16%
Security
1%

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 4,331 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 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 4,331 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 1,544 of the 4,331 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.4% 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 roughly 45 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 655 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 76.8% on time across 382 flights, within about 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. 382 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 ORF

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 382 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 75.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures