Route reliability record
MCO→SLC
Orlando to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 1,483
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,931 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,483 MCO to SLC flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MCO to SLC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Thursday flights 88.7%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,467 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.67%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.4% on time across 1,409 flights
These figures cover 1,483 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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 SLC
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 | 42 | 90.5% | 69 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 19 | 89.5% | 81 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,409 | 82.4% | 76 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 13 | 53.8% | 63 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to SLC
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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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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am211 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm204 flights84.5%
- 2pm–5pm215 flights69.5%
- 5pm–8pm488 flights78.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.9% of the time, against 69.5% for the afternoon window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 488 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 69.5%, a wide gap of 24.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm84.5%
- 2–5pm69.5%
- 5–8pm78.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
July is the worst month at 70.3% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 90.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.0%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 19,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 19,410 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,570 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.67%, below the national 1.89% 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 actually costs
6.2% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,931 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 83.0% on time across 1,483 flights, within half 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 1,483 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 SLC 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 90.5% on time and July 70.3%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,467 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to SLC questions
How often is MCO to SLC delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 1,483 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MCO to SLC compared with the rest of the country?
82.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to SLC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 69.5%, 24 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 July delays on MCO to SLC?
July is the weakest month at 70.3% on time, compared with 90.5% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- SLC to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record90.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record89.5%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.4%
- 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 SLC and SLC 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.