Route reliability record
MCO→SDF
Orlando to Louisville
- Flights
- 868
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 719 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 868 MCO to SDF flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly MCO to SDF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 97.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.6%, against 74.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 849 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.2% on time across 724 flights
These figures cover 868 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to SDF
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 | 116 | 81.4% | 53 min | 2.59% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 724 | 73.2% | 59 min | 2.07% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 71.4% | 38 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 49 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–8am36 flights97.2%
- 8am–11am410 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm45 flights73.3%
- 2pm–5pm47 flights47.8%
- 5pm–8pm117 flights65.8%
- 8pm–5am213 flights55.9%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 97.2% of the time, against 47.8% for the afternoon window. That is 49 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
December is the weak month at 61.6% on time, against 95.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 95 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.8%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 13,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
44% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 12,713 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 4,636 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 719 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 80.9% on time across 868 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 868 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SDF after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 868 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 74.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 849 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to SDF questions
How often is MCO to SDF 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 25.8% of the 868 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MCO to SDF compared with the rest of the country?
74.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to SDF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 97.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 47.8%, 49 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 December delays on MCO to SDF?
December is the weakest month at 61.6% on time, compared with 95.2% in September. Across the year that is 34 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
- SDF to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to SDF81.4%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to SDF73.2%
- MCO to ATL, a related route75.6%
- ORD to SDF, a related route75.3%
- MCO to EWR, a related route73.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record81.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record71.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MCO to SDF and SDF to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MCO to SDF’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.