Route reliability record
ORD→MCO
Chicago to Orlando
- Flights
- 6,220
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,005 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,220 ORD to MCO flights, of which United Airlines flew 2,537 at 79.0% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 78.8%, against 72.8% for the route overall.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 79.0% on time across 2,537 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,085 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
79.0% on time across 2,537 flights
These figures cover 6,220 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 79.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,161 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,537 | 79.0% | 70 min | 0.71% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 390 | 73.0% | 106 min | 2.31% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 672 | 71.8% | 67 min | 1.34% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 460 | 71.7% | 79 min | 3.70% | C− |
| American Airlines | 2,161 | 65.9% | 77 min | 2.17% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.7% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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.
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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → MCOChicago to Orlando | United Airlines | 78.4% | 79.0% | 0.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | UA 2280 07:20 |
| 2. MDW → MCOChicago to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 73.6% | 74.8% | 1.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. ORD → MCOChicago to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 71.3% | 73.0% | 2.31% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 4. ORD → MCOChicago to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 70.8% | 71.8% | 1.34% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → MCOChicago to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 69.0% | 71.7% | 3.70% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,290 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am1,097 flights75.1%
- 11am–2pm1,194 flights70.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,170 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,326 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am143 flights67.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.8% on time, against 86.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,326 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.8%, a wide gap of 23.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am75.1%
- 11am–2pm70.1%
- 2–5pm69.9%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am67.4%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 66.6% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 86.1%. 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 688 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 125,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 125,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 124,938 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 86.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.56%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% 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 1,005 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 71.1% on time across 6,224 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.
The sample behind these figures is 6,220 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. September runs 86.1% on time and August 66.6%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 6,085 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to MCO questions
How often is ORD 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 27.2% of the 6,220 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to MCO?
United Airlines leads at 79.0% on time across 2,537 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, a gap of 13 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 ORD to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.8%, 24 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 August delays on ORD to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 66.6% on time, compared with 86.1% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ORD to MCO79.0%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to MCO73.0%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to MCO71.8%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to MCO71.7%
- American Airlines on ORD to MCO65.9%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- United Airlines on-time record79.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.8%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to MCO and MCO to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD to MCO’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.