Route reliability record
MHT→MCO
Manchester to Orlando
- Flights
- 868
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,142 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 868 MHT to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 502 at 78.6% on time.
Best time to fly MHT to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.1% of the time and Thursday flights 86.6%, against 77.6% 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
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 853 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.6% on time across 502 flights
These figures cover 868 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 MHT to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 502 | 78.6% | 57 min | 0.60% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways | 366 | 76.3% | 69 min | 1.64% | B |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.6%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MHT to MCO
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Manchester to Orlando
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MHT → MCOManchester to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 78.1% | 78.6% | 0.60% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. MHT → MCOManchester to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 75.0% | 76.3% | 1.64% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1143 07:00 |
| 3. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 73.8% | 75.4% | 2.15% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1513 20:20 |
| 4. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 65.9% | 67.9% | 2.89% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2251 07:00 |
| 5. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 60.9% | 63.5% | 4.08% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
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 38 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am402 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am69 flights79.4%
- 11am–2pm120 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm240 flights67.7%
- 5pm–8pm34 flights47.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.1% on time, against 85.1% 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 402 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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 58.0% on time, 31 points below May, the best at 88.7%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 98 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.9%. 18 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. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 12,000 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%National Airspace System
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 5,291 minutes out of 12,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 11,948 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.69%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 1,142 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 runs 78.3% on time across 868 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.
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 MCO 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 77.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 853 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MHT to MCO questions
How often is MHT to MCO delayed?
Roughly 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 22.4% of the 868 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MHT to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.6% on time across 502 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 76.3%, a gap of 2 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 MHT to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 47.1%, 38 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 MHT to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 58.0% on time, compared with 88.7% in May. Across the year that is 31 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
- MCO to MHT — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on MHT to MCO78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on MHT to MCO76.3%
- MHT to BWI, a related route87.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- MHT to DCA, a related route70.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.6%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record76.3%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MHT to MCO and MCO to MHT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.