Carrier route record
WNRDU→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Raleigh to Orlando
- Flights
- 844
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on RDU to MCO lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 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 844 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,005 at 81.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on RDU to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 830 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on RDU to MCO, 2,702 flights
These figures cover 844 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Southwest against every carrier on RDU to MCO
Southwest flew 844 of the 2,702 flights on RDU to MCO, about 31% of it. Its 78.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 81.9% to Frontier at 73.0%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.9% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 73.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 724 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,005 | 81.9% | 80 min | 2.39% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 129 | 81.2% | 38 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 844 | 78.2% | 62 min | 1.54% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 724 | 73.0% | 93 min | 1.80% | C |
Delta leads Frontier by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 36 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am279 flights95.3%
- 8am–11am97 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm112 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm334 flights59.5%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 95.3% 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. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 334 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on RDU to MCO through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.9% 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 88 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.8%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 11,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 2%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 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 10,758 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 95.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.2% 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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. 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 71.7% on time across 844 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 844 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on RDU to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 844 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 78.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 830 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to RDU, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to MCO81.9%
- Republic Airways on RDU to MCO81.2%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to MCO73.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.