Carrier route record
WNMCO→SDF
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to Louisville
- Flights
- 724
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 83%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to SDF sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 724 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MCO to SDF runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 44 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 708 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.2%
Every carrier on MCO to SDF, 868 flights
These figures cover 724 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% 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
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to SDF
Southwest flew 724 of the 868 flights on MCO to SDF, most of the route. Its 73.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 81.4% to Republic at 71.4%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 81.4% | 53 min | 2.59% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 724 | 73.2% | 59 min | 2.07% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 71.4% | 38 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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 44 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–8am5 flights—
- 8am–11am345 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm30 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm33 flights43.8%
- 5pm–8pm112 flights67.0%
- 8pm–5am199 flights54.7%
Scale runs 35% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 43.8% for the afternoon window. That is 44 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 345 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to SDF through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. October was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 56.9%. 24 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 47% of the 11,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
47% 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 11,000 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 11,290 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 3,955 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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 80.2% on time across 724 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. 724 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on MCO to SDF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 724 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 73.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 708 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to SDF, every carrier
- Southwest on SDF to MCO, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to SDF81.4%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) 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.