Carrier route record
WNORD→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Chicago to Orlando
- Flights
- 801
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 13%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on ORD to MCO sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 801 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 2,459 at 78.7% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 78.7% on time across 2,459 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 788 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on ORD to MCO, 6,347 flights
These figures cover 801 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 ORD to MCO
Southwest flew 801 of the 6,347 flights on ORD to MCO, about 13% of it. Its 73.9% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 78.7% to American at 64.5%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.7% of the time; American Airlines manages 64.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,140 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,459 | 78.7% | 70 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 801 | 73.9% | 66 min | 1.12% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 582 | 71.6% | 80 min | 3.09% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 365 | 69.5% | 97 min | 2.19% | C |
| American Airlines | 2,140 | 64.5% | 79 min | 2.29% | D |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
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 44 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am338 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm216 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm159 flights68.2%
- 5pm–8pm88 flights42.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 42.4% on time, against 86.8% 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 338 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on ORD to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 93.3% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%. 17 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 58% of the 14,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 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 13,500 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 86.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 1,005 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. 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 66.8% on time across 800 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 801 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on ORD to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 801 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 788 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to MCO78.7%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to MCO71.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to MCO69.5%
- American Airlines on ORD to MCO64.5%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.