Carrier route record
WNORF→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Norfolk to Orlando
- Flights
- 382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on ORF 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 an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 382 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on ORF 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
76.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 380 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on ORF to MCO, 808 flights
These figures cover 382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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
Southwest against every carrier on ORF to MCO
Southwest flew 382 of the 808 flights on ORF to MCO, about 47% of it. Its 76.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.8% to Frontier at 75.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 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
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 39 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–8am95 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am10 flights—
- 11am–2pm86 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm128 flights75.6%
- 5pm–8pm63 flights55.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 94.7% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 128 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on ORF to MCO through the year
July is the worst month at 51.4% on time, 42 points below September, the best at 93.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 35 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.7%. 24 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 46% of the 5,843 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.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
46% 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 5,843 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 5,843 reported delay minutes.
33% 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 1,954 minutes out of 5,843, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.26%, 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
8.9% 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 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 runs 75.6% on time across 382 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 382 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 ORF to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 382 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 76.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORF to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to ORF, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on ORF to MCO76.7%
- Frontier Airlines on ORF to MCO75.8%
- 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.