Route reliability record
PIT→MCO
Pittsburgh to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,237
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 834 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,237 PIT to MCO flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly PIT to MCO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.5%, against 79.1% 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
79.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,198 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.3% on time across 1,703 flights
These figures cover 2,237 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PIT to MCO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 82.1% | 42 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 352 | 80.7% | 67 min | 4.55% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,703 | 79.3% | 61 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 154 | 72.7% | 64 min | 1.95% | C |
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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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am624 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am448 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm208 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm331 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm465 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am161 flights68.8%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 90.6% for the 8am–11am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 624 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PIT 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 PIT to MCO, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.6%, a wide gap of 26.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am89.7%
- 8–11am90.6%
- 11am–2pm80.5%
- 2–5pm68.3%
- 5–8pm64.6%
- 8pm–5am68.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% 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.
August is the worst month at 68.0% on time, 21 points below April, the best at 88.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 215 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 26 to one. The split is drawn from 28,561 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 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.30% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.45%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 about an hour, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.0% on time across 2,233 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 2,237 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. April runs 88.7% on time and August 68.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,198 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.9% of the 2,237 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PIT to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
79.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PIT to MCO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.6%, 26 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 August delays on PIT to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 88.7% in April. 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 PIT — the return legseparate record
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on PIT to MCO80.7%
- Southwest Airlines on PIT to MCO79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on PIT to MCO72.7%
- PIT to ORD, a related route77.1%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- PIT to LGA, a related route79.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record80.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.3%
- 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. 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.
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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.