Carrier route record

WNMDW→MCO

Southwest Airlines · Chicago to Orlando

Flights: 2,541
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 92%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on MDW to MCO 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 2,541 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on MDW to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,482 completed flights

Avg delay

57 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.46%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.9%

Every carrier on MDW to MCO, 2,774 flights

These figures cover 2,541 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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 MDW to MCO

Southwest flew 2,541 of the 2,774 flights on MDW to MCO, most of the route. Its 75.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 80.3% to Southwest at 75.5%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on MDW to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	233	80.3%	88 min	1.72%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)	2,541	75.5%	57 min	1.46%	B

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 31 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–8am675 flights90.1%
8am–11am474 flights80.4%
11am–2pm443 flights74.2%
2pm–5pm309 flights67.8%
5pm–8pm460 flights61.4%
8pm–5am180 flights58.6%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.6% on time, against 90.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 675 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on MDW to MCO through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 60.7% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 85.7%. 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 241 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

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 35,000 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
28%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
1%

35% 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 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 27 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 34,547 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 12,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.87%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.5% 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 990 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 70.0% on time across 2,548 flights, 6 points below 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 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,541 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 MDW to MCO

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.7% on time and June 60.7%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,482 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures