Route reliability record
ORF→MCO
Norfolk to Orlando
- Flights
- 808
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 655 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 808 ORF to MCO flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORF to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.3%, against 76.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 785 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.60%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.8% on time across 382 flights
These figures cover 808 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORF 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 382 | 76.8% | 66 min | 0.26% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 244 | 76.7% | 70 min | 6.56% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 182 | 75.8% | 71 min | 2.20% | B |
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 25 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–8am208 flights90.2%
- 8am–11am36 flights74.3%
- 11am–2pm114 flights74.3%
- 2pm–5pm180 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm197 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am73 flights81.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 65.5% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 208 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 63.9% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 87.1%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 80 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.7%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
45% 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 27 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 12,595 reported delay minutes.
36% 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 4,566 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 2.60%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.8% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 655 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 72.7% on time across 808 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 808 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. 808 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 76.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORF to MCO questions
How often is ORF 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 23.4% of the 808 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is ORF to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
76.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORF to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.5%, 25 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 ORF to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 63.9% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 ORF — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on ORF to MCO76.8%
- Spirit Airlines on ORF to MCO76.7%
- Frontier Airlines on ORF to MCO75.8%
- ORF to ATL, a related route85.6%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.7%
- ORF to CLT, a related route82.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record76.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORF to MCO and MCO to ORF are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORF to MCO’s on-time badge on your site
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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.