Route reliability record
MCO→PHL
Orlando to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 5,333
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 862 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 5,333 MCO to PHL flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,626 at 75.3% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.4%, against 71.3% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.3% on time across 2,626 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,196 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.46%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
75.3% on time across 2,626 flights
These figures cover 5,333 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 75.3% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 62.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 433 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,626 | 75.3% | 98 min | 2.40% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,619 | 69.2% | 98 min | 2.16% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 655 | 66.3% | 62 min | 0.76% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 433 | 62.5% | 70 min | 6.47% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to PHL
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → PHLOrlando to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 73.5% | 75.3% | 2.40% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. MCO → PHLOrlando to Philadelphia | Frontier Airlines | 67.7% | 69.2% | 2.16% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 1542 05:05 |
| 3. MCO → PHLOrlando to Philadelphia | Southwest Airlines | 65.8% | 66.3% | 0.76% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 4. MCO → PHLOrlando to Philadelphia | Spirit Airlines | 58.5% | 62.5% | 6.47% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 36 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am709 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am1,066 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm772 flights70.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,099 flights60.8%
- 5pm–8pm1,001 flights64.2%
- 8pm–5am686 flights56.4%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.4% on time, against 92.3% 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 1,099 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to PHL by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MCO to PHL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 56.4%, a wide gap of 35.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.3%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm70.8%
- 2–5pm60.8%
- 5–8pm64.2%
- 8pm–5am56.4%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 57.7% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 82.2%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 505 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.1%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 134,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 134,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 133,992 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.46% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 862 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 72.4% on time across 5,338 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.
The sample behind these figures is 5,333 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 PHL 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 82.2% on time and July 57.7%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,196 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to PHL questions
How often is MCO to PHL delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.7% of the 5,333 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to PHL?
American Airlines leads at 75.3% on time across 2,626 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 62.5%, a gap of 13 points. 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 PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 56.4%, 36 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 PHL?
July is the weakest month at 57.7% on time, compared with 82.2% in September. Across the year that is 25 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
- PHL to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MCO to PHL75.3%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to PHL69.2%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to PHL66.3%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to PHL62.5%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- American Airlines on-time record75.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record66.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. MCO to PHL and PHL 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.