Route reliability record
STL→MCO
St. Louis to Orlando
- Flights
- 2,539
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 882 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 2,539 STL to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,143 at 78.4% on time.
Best time to fly STL to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.9%, against 77.5% 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
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,503 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.4% on time across 2,143 flights
These figures cover 2,539 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.
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 STL to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,143 | 78.4% | 59 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 396 | 72.5% | 77 min | 2.53% | C |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.4%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 St. Louis 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. STL → MCOSt. Louis to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 77.9% | 78.4% | 0.61% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. STL → MCOSt. Louis to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 70.7% | 72.5% | 2.53% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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 29 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am510 flights93.9%
- 8am–11am473 flights83.7%
- 11am–2pm229 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm641 flights68.4%
- 5pm–8pm541 flights70.1%
- 8pm–5am145 flights64.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 93.9% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 641 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter STL 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 STL to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.6%, a wide gap of 29.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.9%
- 8–11am83.7%
- 11am–2pm78.9%
- 2–5pm68.4%
- 5–8pm70.1%
- 8pm–5am64.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 69.4% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 85.9%. 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 269 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 70.7%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 35,181 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 93.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.51%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% 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 882 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 2,504 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 2,539 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 85.9% on time and August 69.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,503 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
STL to MCO questions
How often is STL to MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 2,539 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on STL to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.4% on time across 2,143 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 6 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 STL to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.6%, 29 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 STL to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 69.4% on time, compared with 85.9% in April. Across the year that is 17 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 STL — the return legseparate record
- St. Louis Lambert International (STL) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on STL to MCO78.4%
- Frontier Airlines on STL to MCO72.5%
- STL to DEN, a related route75.0%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- STL to ATL, a related route84.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record72.5%
- 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. STL to MCO and MCO to STL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed STL 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.