Route reliability record

PIT→MCO

Pittsburgh to Orlando

Flights: 2,184
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 834 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 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 2,184 flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 435 at 80.4% on time.

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.

On time

79.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,151 completed flights

Avg delay

67 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.24%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Spirit

80.4% on time across 435 flights

These figures cover 2,184 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on PIT to MCO

The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PIT to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	28	82.1%	42 min	0.00%	B+
Spirit Airlines	435	80.4%	73 min	3.68%	B−
Southwest Airlines	1,592	79.8%	65 min	0.63%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	129	76.4%	71 min	0.78%	B+

Spirit Airlines cancels 3.7% 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 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–8am652 flights89.8%
8am–11am401 flights90.9%
11am–2pm214 flights78.7%
2pm–5pm297 flights70.9%
5pm–8pm427 flights65.7%
8pm–5am193 flights68.6%

Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 65.7% 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 652 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 19 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, December worst

December is the weak month at 69.6% on time, against 88.7% in April. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 215 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.1%. 13 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 44% of the 29,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
National Airspace System
30%
Carrier
24%
Extreme weather
1%

44% 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 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 40 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 29,225 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.9% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.5% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 834 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 75.6% on time across 2,178 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,184 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. April runs 88.7% on time and December 69.6%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,151 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PIT to MCO questions

How often is PIT to MCO delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.3% of the 2,184 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on PIT to MCO?

Spirit Airlines leads at 80.4% on time across 435 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 79.8%, a gap of half a point. 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 PIT to MCO?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.7%, 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 December delays on PIT to MCO?

December is the weakest month at 69.6% on time, compared with 88.7% in April. Across the year that is 19 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. PIT to MCO and MCO to PIT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures