Carrier route record
B6RIC→MCO
JetBlue Airways · Richmond to Orlando
- Flights
- 676
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 56%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with JetBlue Airways.
JetBlue on RIC to MCO 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 676 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate JetBlue on RIC 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
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 658 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.37%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.8%
Every carrier on RIC to MCO, 1,202 flights
These figures cover 676 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
JetBlue against every carrier on RIC to MCO
JetBlue flew 676 of the 1,202 flights on RIC to MCO, most of the route. Its 74.2% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.5% to Spirit at 56.4%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 320 | 76.5% | 60 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 19 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| JetBlue Airways (this page) | 676 | 74.2% | 82 min | 2.37% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 202 | 56.4% | 85 min | 2.48% | D |
Flight by flight
JetBlue flight numbers on RIC to MCO
Departure window
When JetBlue runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 35 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–8am38 flights94.7%
- 8am–11am152 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm166 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm124 flights65.5%
- 5pm–8pm88 flights60.0%
- 8pm–5am108 flights64.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 94.7% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 166 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
JetBlue on RIC to MCO through the year
February is the weak month at 44.9% on time, against 93.8% in September. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 82 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.5%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why JetBlue runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 14,000 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.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
57% 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 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 33 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 13,964 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 94.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 667 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 runs 74.7% on time across 676 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 676 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 JetBlue on RIC to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 676 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 74.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 658 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RIC to MCO, every carrier
- JetBlue on MCO to RIC, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on RIC to MCO76.5%
- Spirit Airlines on RIC to MCO56.4%
- JetBlue Airways network-wide record
- 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.