Route reliability record
PHL→MCO
Philadelphia to Orlando
- Flights
- 5,338
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 862 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 5,338 PHL to MCO flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 437 at 77.4% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.0%, against 72.4% for the route overall.
Spirit Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 77.4% on time across 437 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,174 completed flights
Avg delay
84 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
77.4% on time across 437 flights
These figures cover 5,338 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 PHL to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Spirit Airlines arrives on time 77.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 67.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,622 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 437 | 77.4% | 65 min | 6.86% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,626 | 74.8% | 77 min | 2.32% | C |
| Southwest Airlines | 653 | 71.1% | 59 min | 1.53% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,622 | 67.8% | 107 min | 2.59% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.9% 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 PHL 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Orlando
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → MCOPhiladelphia to Orlando | American Airlines | 73.1% | 74.8% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHL → MCOPhiladelphia to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 72.1% | 77.4% | 6.86% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. PHL → MCOPhiladelphia to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 70.0% | 71.1% | 1.53% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PHL → MCOPhiladelphia to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 66.0% | 67.8% | 2.59% | 8am–11am, Wed | F9 1807 08:00 |
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 29 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,050 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am992 flights81.3%
- 11am–2pm856 flights70.4%
- 2pm–5pm1,084 flights64.9%
- 5pm–8pm887 flights58.2%
- 8pm–5am469 flights69.2%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 58.2% on time, against 86.7% 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 1,084 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 58.2%, a wide gap of 28.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am81.3%
- 11am–2pm70.4%
- 2–5pm64.9%
- 5–8pm58.2%
- 8pm–5am69.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
July is the worst month at 59.5% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 80.3%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 504 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 120,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 120,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 120,455 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 86.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.68%, against 1.89% 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
11.7% 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 862 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 71.3% on time across 5,333 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.
The sample behind these figures is 5,338 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 80.3% on time and July 59.5%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 5,174 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to MCO questions
How often is PHL 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 27.6% of the 5,338 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to MCO?
Spirit Airlines leads at 77.4% on time across 437 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 67.8%, a gap of 10 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 PHL to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 58.2%, 29 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 July delays on PHL to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 59.5% on time, compared with 80.3% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on PHL to MCO77.4%
- American Airlines on PHL to MCO74.8%
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to MCO71.1%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to MCO67.8%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- PHL to ORD, a related route73.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record74.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHL to MCO and MCO to PHL 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.