Route reliability record
PHL→MCO
Philadelphia to Orlando
- Flights
- 5,347
- Period
- June 2025 to May 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 5,347 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 642 at 72.8% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 72.8% on time across 642 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,194 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.49%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
72.8% on time across 642 flights
These figures cover 5,347 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% 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 PHL to MCO
The four carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 642 | 72.8% | 60 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 2,566 | 72.4% | 76 min | 2.26% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 645 | 72.3% | 67 min | 5.43% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,494 | 69.0% | 106 min | 2.28% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 5.4% 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
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 35 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,080 flights87.9%
- 8am–11am940 flights81.5%
- 11am–2pm720 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm1,107 flights64.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,043 flights53.2%
- 8pm–5am457 flights67.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.2% on time, against 87.9% 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.
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 59.3% 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.3%. 18 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 121,000 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
- 25%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 121,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 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 87.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. 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 72.1% on time across 5,342 flights, within half 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 5,347 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.
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 59.3%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else.
Common questions
PHL to MCO questions
How often is PHL to MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.5% of the 5,347 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 72.8% on time across 642 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 69.0%, a gap of 4 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 87.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 53.2%, 35 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 59.3% 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
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.8%
- American Airlines on-time record72.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.3%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.