Route reliability record
MCO→PIT
Orlando to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 2,233
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 834 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,233 MCO to PIT flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly MCO to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.8%, against 75.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,196 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.43%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.2% on time across 1,703 flights
These figures cover 2,233 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to PIT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 349 | 75.7% | 65 min | 4.30% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,703 | 75.2% | 57 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 153 | 73.5% | 63 min | 1.31% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 60.7% | 46 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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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 38 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am410 flights96.6%
- 8am–11am330 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm201 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm500 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm400 flights65.1%
- 8pm–5am392 flights58.8%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 96.6% 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 500 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.8%, a wide gap of 37.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.6%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm69.9%
- 5–8pm65.1%
- 8pm–5am58.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 89.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 31,944 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 96.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.43% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 834 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.1% on time across 2,237 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,233 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 PIT 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 89.3% on time and March 62.2%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 2,196 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to PIT questions
How often is MCO to PIT delayed?
About 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 25.0% of the 2,233 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MCO to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
75.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.8%, 38 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 March delays on MCO to PIT?
March is the weakest month at 62.2% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 27 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
- PIT to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to PIT75.7%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to PIT75.2%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to PIT73.5%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record75.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.2%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MCO to PIT and PIT 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.