Route profile
DAL→MCO
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Dallas to Orlando, 973 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 30% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 8,331 flights. How this is calculated
DAL → MCO arrives on time 73.0% of the time; the return trip, MCO → DAL, arrives on time 72.3% of the time.
DAL → MCO spends 22.8 minutes on the ground on a 973-mile trip: 13.4 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DAL and 9.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at MCO.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
On-time performance swings unusually widely by time of day here, wider than 95% of 4,023 comparable routes.
88.5% on time for 5–9 AM departures, against 55.4% for 9 PM–5 AM.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,023 in the comparison.
Why DAL → MCO flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DAL → MCO cancelled 123 of 8,331 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 68. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 65.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 104 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 123 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
80 cancellations, 65.0% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
25 cancellations, 20.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
18 cancellations, 14.6% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
123 coded cancellations were recorded on DAL → MCO; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
50 min late
against a median of 1 min early
Percentiles over 8,331 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MCO after arriving from DAL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 47% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 26% | High risk |
| 60 min | 16% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.0% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.5% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.48% of the time and diverts 0.41% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 8,174 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 50 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 8,331 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DAL → MCO flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.5% of the time, against 55.4% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 33.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 92.0% on time from 1,084 flights
- 7 AM: 86.5% on time from 717 flights
- 8 AM: 84.5% on time from 582 flights
- 9 AM: 83.7% on time from 510 flights
- 10 AM: 75.1% on time from 449 flights
- 11 AM: 77.6% on time from 340 flights
- 12 PM: 73.8% on time from 443 flights
- 1 PM: 68.7% on time from 399 flights
- 2 PM: 71.6% on time from 295 flights
- 3 PM: 61.6% on time from 587 flights
- 4 PM: 63.8% on time from 615 flights
- 5 PM: 59.6% on time from 627 flights
- 6 PM: 56.4% on time from 432 flights
- 7 PM: 62.1% on time from 610 flights
- 8 PM: 60.9% on time from 453 flights
- 9 PM: 57.1% on time from 179 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DAL → MCO runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for DAL → MCO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on DAL → MCO, at 42.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.5% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 55.4%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,331 | 73.0% | 1.48% | -1 min | 8.1% |
Other ways to fly Dallas–Fort Worth to Orlando
Airport pairs in the same two city markets, as the DOT defines them.
| Route | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DFW→MCO Dallas–Fort Worth to Orlando | 15,281 | 65.6% | 2.36% | 1 min | 33 |
| DAL→MCO this route Dallas to Orlando | 8,331 | 73.0% | 1.48% | -1 min | 58 |
DAL → MCO is the most reliable pairing for this journey at 73.0% on time, against 65.6% for DFW → MCO.
Flying to MCO from the Dallas–Fort Worth area? Compare DAL, DFW for MCO, with the same test for what counts as a real difference.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Thursday the least, a gap of 11.9 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.2%
- Feb: 78.8%
- Mar: 68.0%
- Apr: 73.4%
- May: 64.9%
- Jun: 63.9%
- Jul: 62.8%
- Aug: 74.1%
- Sep: 80.7%
- Oct: 79.5%
- Nov: 81.6%
- Dec: 77.5%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 18.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 63.1% from 243 flights
- August 2023: 85.0% from 229 flights
- September 2023: 78.8% from 204 flights
- October 2023: 78.6% from 240 flights
- November 2023: 84.3% from 236 flights
- December 2023: 81.5% from 248 flights
- January 2024: 72.9% from 242 flights
- February 2024: 84.2% from 224 flights
- March 2024: 67.1% from 240 flights
- April 2024: 74.2% from 226 flights
- May 2024: 64.5% from 232 flights
- June 2024: 65.0% from 240 flights
- July 2024: 66.8% from 249 flights
- August 2024: 68.0% from 183 flights
- September 2024: 78.9% from 167 flights
- October 2024: 86.0% from 224 flights
- November 2024: 83.7% from 228 flights
- December 2024: 74.2% from 239 flights
- January 2025: 85.4% from 213 flights
- February 2025: 77.9% from 191 flights
- March 2025: 76.6% from 238 flights
- April 2025: 72.8% from 230 flights
- May 2025: 65.6% from 234 flights
- June 2025: 66.5% from 243 flights
- July 2025: 61.1% from 250 flights
- August 2025: 65.9% from 172 flights
- September 2025: 85.1% from 154 flights
- October 2025: 74.6% from 228 flights
- November 2025: 76.5% from 222 flights
- December 2025: 76.8% from 236 flights
- January 2026: 77.1% from 223 flights
- February 2026: 73.9% from 210 flights
- March 2026: 60.4% from 245 flights
- April 2026: 73.2% from 230 flights
- May 2026: 64.7% from 237 flights
- June 2026: 60.0% from 236 flights
- July 2026: 60.1% from 245 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 70.2% against 74.4% in the 12 months before — declining by 4.2 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 8,331 DAL → MCO flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed