Route reliability record
RDU→MCO
Raleigh to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,695
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 534 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,695 RDU to MCO flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,025 at 82.4% on time.
Best time to fly RDU to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.5%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 82.4% on time across 1,025 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,642 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
82.4% on time across 1,025 flights
These figures cover 2,695 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to MCO
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 82.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 70.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 762 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,025 | 82.4% | 75 min | 2.24% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 67 | 80.6% | 34 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 841 | 79.3% | 63 min | 1.31% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 762 | 70.4% | 100 min | 1.84% | C |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Raleigh 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. RDU → MCORaleigh to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 80.6% | 82.4% | 2.24% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1337 07:05 |
| 2. RDU → MCORaleigh to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 78.3% | 79.3% | 1.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. RDU → MCORaleigh to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 69.1% | 70.4% | 1.84% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
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 28 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am662 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am165 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm585 flights80.8%
- 2pm–5pm277 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm750 flights65.4%
- 8pm–5am256 flights68.1%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 65.4% for the evening window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 750 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RDU 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 RDU to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.4%, a wide gap of 28.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.6%
- 8–11am88.4%
- 11am–2pm80.8%
- 2–5pm71.6%
- 5–8pm65.4%
- 8pm–5am68.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 71.8% on time, 16 points below September, the best at 88.2%. 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 259 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 46,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 46,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 48 to one. The split is drawn from 46,134 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 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.1% 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 534 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 76.6% on time across 2,695 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 2,695 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 88.2% on time and July 71.8%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,642 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to MCO questions
How often is RDU to MCO delayed?
Roughly 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 22.0% of the 2,695 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to MCO?
Delta Air Lines leads at 82.4% on time across 1,025 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 70.4%, a gap of 12 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 RDU to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.4%, 28 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 RDU to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 71.8% on time, compared with 88.2% in September. Across the year that is 16 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 RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to MCO82.4%
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to MCO79.3%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to MCO70.4%
- RDU to ATL, a related route86.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.3%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. RDU to MCO and MCO to RDU are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed RDU to MCO’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.