Route reliability record
MSP→MCO
Minneapolis to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,941
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,310 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,941 MSP to MCO flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.6%, against 75.3% 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
75.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,904 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
75.6% on time across 1,859 flights
These figures cover 1,941 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,859 | 75.6% | 76 min | 1.40% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 64 | 70.5% | 111 min | 4.69% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 61.1% | 69 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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.
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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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am368 flights87.8%
- 8am–11am485 flights77.4%
- 11am–2pm369 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm286 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm281 flights65.0%
- 8pm–5am152 flights71.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.8% of the time, against 65.0% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 485 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.0%, a wide gap of 22.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.8%
- 8–11am77.4%
- 11am–2pm73.8%
- 2–5pm69.8%
- 5–8pm65.0%
- 8pm–5am71.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
January is the weak month at 62.2% on time, against 86.1% in October. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 237 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.4%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 57% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 57%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 21,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 36,338 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.49% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,310 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 77.9% on time across 1,943 flights, within 3 points 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 1,941 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 MCO 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. October runs 86.1% on time and January 62.2%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,904 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to MCO questions
How often is MSP to MCO delayed?
About 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 24.7% of the 1,941 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
75.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.0%, 23 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 January delays on MSP to MCO?
January is the weakest month at 62.2% on time, compared with 86.1% in October. Across the year that is 24 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record61.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. MSP to MCO and MCO to MSP 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.