Carrier route record
WNMCO→PIT
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,590
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 73%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to PIT 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,590 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MCO to PIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,574 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.6%
Every carrier on MCO to PIT, 2,178 flights
These figures cover 1,590 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to PIT
Southwest flew 1,590 of the 2,178 flights on MCO to PIT, most of the route. Its 75.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 78.9% to Republic at 60.7%. 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 | 128 | 78.9% | 66 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,590 | 75.9% | 60 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 432 | 74.6% | 73 min | 3.47% | C− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 60.7% | 46 min | 0.00% | 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 42 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–8am304 flights97.7%
- 8am–11am283 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm166 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm256 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights68.3%
- 8pm–5am231 flights55.9%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 97.7% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to PIT through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. June was the busiest month here, with 173 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%. 15 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 48% of the 23,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
48% 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 23,000 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 22,728 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 97.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.75%, 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
7.6% 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 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. 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 79.8% on time across 1,592 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 1,590 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 PIT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.6% on time and March 65.0%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,574 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to PIT, every carrier
- Southwest on PIT to MCO, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to PIT78.9%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to PIT74.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) 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.