Carrier route record
WNSDF→MCO
Southwest Airlines · Louisville to Orlando
- Flights
- 724
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 83%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on SDF to MCO lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About 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 724 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on SDF 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 706 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.9%
Every carrier on SDF to MCO, 868 flights
These figures cover 724 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on SDF to MCO
Southwest flew 724 of the 868 flights on SDF to MCO, most of the route. Its 80.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 86.6% to Republic at 75.0%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 86.6% | 74 min | 3.45% | A− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 724 | 80.2% | 58 min | 1.66% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 28 | 75.0% | 42 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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 31 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–8am348 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am18 flights—
- 11am–2pm50 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm278 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.3% on time, against 94.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 348 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on SDF to MCO through the year
June is the worst month at 65.2% on time, 32 points below September, the best at 97.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 74 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.5%. 12 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 52% of the 8,129 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 23%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
52% 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 8,129 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 8,129 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 94.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.66% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.83%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.2% 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 719 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 73.2% on time across 724 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. 724 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 SDF to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 724 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 80.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 706 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SDF to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to SDF, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on SDF to MCO86.6%
- Southwest Airlines 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.