Route reliability record
MHT→MCO
Manchester to Orlando
- Flights
- 804
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,142 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 804 MHT to MCO flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MHT to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Thursday flights 87.3%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 790 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.1% on time across 492 flights
These figures cover 804 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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 MHT to MCO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 312 | 82.0% | 72 min | 1.60% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 492 | 78.1% | 59 min | 0.41% | B+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 4 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 | 77.8% | 78.1% | 0.41% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 73.8% | 75.5% | 2.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1580 07:05 |
| 3. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 64.2% | 66.6% | 3.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 2251 07:00 |
| 4. BOS → MCOBoston to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 55.6% | 58.5% | 4.88% | 11am–2pm, 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 43 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am387 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am46 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm161 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm169 flights77.7%
- 5pm–8pm38 flights42.1%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 42.1% on time, against 84.8% 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 387 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MHT to MCO 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 MHT to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 42.1%, a wide gap of 42.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.8%
- 8–11am78.3%
- 11am–2pm78.7%
- 2–5pm77.7%
- 5–8pm42.1%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 35% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 63.2% on time, 26 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 87.3% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 74.0%, a spread of 13 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 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 3,990 minutes out of 10,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 10,177 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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.87%, 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
7.0% 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 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.
The return leg runs 77.6% on time across 804 flights, within 2 points 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. 804 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. 804 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 79.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 790 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MHT to MCO questions
How often is MHT to MCO delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.4% of the 804 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is MHT to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
79.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MHT to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 42.1%, 43 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 63.2% on time, compared with 88.7% in May. Across the year that is 26 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
- JetBlue Airways on MHT to MCO82.0%
- Southwest Airlines on MHT to MCO78.1%
- MHT to BWI, a related route88.4%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- MHT to DCA, a related route69.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record82.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.1%
- 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. 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.