Route reliability record
MCO→RDU
Orlando to Raleigh
- Flights
- 2,695
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 534 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,695 MCO to RDU flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,025 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to RDU: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.9%, against 76.6% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 78.6% on time across 1,025 flights.
Key figures
On time
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,647 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.6% on time across 1,025 flights
These figures cover 2,695 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 RDU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 78.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 71.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 841 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 67 | 86.6% | 103 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,025 | 78.6% | 86 min | 2.24% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 762 | 78.2% | 80 min | 1.31% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 841 | 71.8% | 60 min | 1.78% | C |
Delta leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to RDU
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 Raleigh
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 → RDUOrlando to Raleigh | Frontier Airlines | 77.2% | 78.2% | 1.31% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. MCO → RDUOrlando to Raleigh | Delta Air Lines | 76.8% | 78.6% | 2.24% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 1337 09:58 |
| 3. MCO → RDUOrlando to Raleigh | Southwest Airlines | 70.5% | 71.8% | 1.78% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 27 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am235 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am817 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm134 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm736 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm252 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am521 flights61.4%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.4% on time, against 88.0% 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 817 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to RDU 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 RDU, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.4%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.2%
- 8–11am88.0%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm66.3%
- 8pm–5am61.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% 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.
August is the worst month at 65.0% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 89.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 260 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 46,356 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.1% 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 534 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 78.0% on time across 2,695 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 2,695 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 RDU 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 89.7% on time and August 65.0%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,647 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to RDU questions
How often is MCO to RDU 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 23.4% of the 2,695 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to RDU?
Delta Air Lines leads at 78.6% on time across 1,025 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 71.8%, a gap of 7 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 RDU?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.4%, 27 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 August delays on MCO to RDU?
August is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 89.7% 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
- RDU to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to RDU78.6%
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to RDU78.2%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to RDU71.8%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- ATL to RDU, a related route80.0%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record86.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. MCO to RDU and RDU 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.