Carrier route record
WNMKE→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Milwaukee to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,129
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MKE to MCO lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,129 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 MKE to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,117 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on MKE to MCO, 1,408 flights
These figures cover 1,129 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 MKE to MCO
Southwest flew 1,129 of the 1,408 flights on MKE to MCO, most of the route. Its 76.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 76.6% to Spirit at 75.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 76.6% | 121 min | 2.47% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,129 | 76.3% | 51 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 117 | 75.9% | 73 min | 4.27% | 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 33 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–8am395 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am108 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm200 flights76.5%
- 2pm–5pm226 flights66.2%
- 5pm–8pm107 flights60.2%
- 8pm–5am93 flights56.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 56.0% on time, against 88.8% 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 395 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MKE to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 85.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%. 11 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 13,000 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
- 28%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 13,430 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 88.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.71%, below the national 1.81% 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 costs
5.9% 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 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,066 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 68.9% on time across 1,129 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,129 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 MKE to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.1% on time and May 68.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,117 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MKE to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to MKE, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on MKE to MCO76.6%
- Spirit Airlines on MKE to MCO75.9%
- 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.