Route reliability record
PHX→MCO
Phoenix to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,857
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,849 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,857 PHX to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 857 at 76.5% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.2%, against 74.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,831 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.70%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
76.5% on time across 857 flights
These figures cover 1,857 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 | 857 | 76.5% | 44 min | 0.58% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 208 | 74.6% | 68 min | 1.44% | C |
| American Airlines | 792 | 71.7% | 57 min | 0.63% | C+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 76.5%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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. PHX → MCOPhoenix to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 76.1% | 76.5% | 0.58% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHX → MCOPhoenix to Orlando | American Airlines | 71.2% | 71.7% | 0.63% | 8pm–5am, Sat | — |
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 32 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am129 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am517 flights71.7%
- 11am–2pm148 flights66.9%
- 2pm–5pm224 flights61.2%
- 5pm–8pm44 flights74.4%
- 8pm–5am795 flights77.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 61.2% for the afternoon window. That is 32 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 795 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 61.2%, a wide gap of 31.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.9%
- 8–11am71.7%
- 11am–2pm66.9%
- 2–5pm61.2%
- 5–8pm74.4%
- 8pm–5am77.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 88.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 194 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 47% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,940 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.70%, below the national 1.89% 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 actually costs
6.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,849 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 1,844 flights, 5 points above 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,857 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 88.9% on time and March 54.8%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,831 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to MCO questions
How often is PHX 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 25.8% of the 1,857 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 76.5% on time across 857 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.7%, a gap of 5 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 PHX to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 61.2%, 32 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 March delays on PHX to MCO?
March is the weakest month at 54.8% on time, compared with 88.9% in September. Across the year that is 34 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to MCO76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to MCO74.6%
- American Airlines on PHX to MCO71.7%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record74.6%
- American Airlines on-time record71.7%
- 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. PHX to MCO and MCO to PHX 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.