Route profile
DTW→MCO
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Detroit to Orlando, 957 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 40% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,806 flights. How this is calculated
DTW → MCO arrives on time 77.5% of the time; the return trip, MCO → DTW, arrives on time 74.5% of the time, a 2.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
DTW → MCO spends 28.4 minutes on the ground on a 957-mile trip: 17.0 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at DTW and 11.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at MCO.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why DTW → MCO flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
DTW → MCO cancelled 122 of 11,806 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 97. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 50.8% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 190 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 122 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.
62 cancellations, 50.8% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
56 cancellations, 45.9% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
4 cancellations, 3.3% 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. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
122 coded cancellations were recorded on DTW → MCO; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
51 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 11,806 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at MCO after arriving from DTW.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 37% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.7% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.5% | Some 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 1.03% of the time and diverts 0.36% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,642 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 51 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,806 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
DTW → MCO flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.3% of the time, against 68.0% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 18.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 91.2% on time from 551 flights
- 6 AM: 88.3% on time from 419 flights
- 7 AM: 87.6% on time from 1,432 flights
- 8 AM: 80.8% on time from 953 flights
- 9 AM: 86.1% on time from 314 flights
- 10 AM: 79.0% on time from 1,388 flights
- 11 AM: 83.1% on time from 398 flights
- 12 PM: 75.7% on time from 651 flights
- 1 PM: 79.8% on time from 552 flights
- 2 PM: 74.0% on time from 994 flights
- 3 PM: 72.2% on time from 536 flights
- 4 PM: 64.7% on time from 891 flights
- 5 PM: 71.6% on time from 405 flights
- 6 PM: 71.1% on time from 748 flights
- 7 PM: 73.8% on time from 460 flights
- 8 PM: 67.5% on time from 597 flights
- 9 PM: 66.1% on time from 470 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why DTW → MCO runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 DTW → MCO. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of DTW to MCO: 2.3 times the normal rate at DTW and 3.2 times at MCO. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: DTW 2.5% against 1.1%, MCO 4.0% against 1.3%. Flights that did leave MCO in bad weather arrived on time 54.1% of the time, against 76.3% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | DTW | MCO |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 2.5% | 4.0% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.1% | 1.3% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 54.1% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 81.6% | 76.3% |
| Departures in bad weather | 53,809 | 33,297 |
Of the carriers on this route, Delta Air Lines (1.6% cancelled against 3.3% for the other carriers at DTW) cancelled the fewest departures from DTW in bad weather and Spirit Airlines (3.3% cancelled against 2.3% for the other carriers at DTW) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at DTW
All departures from DTW| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 25,101 | 1.6%below the others | 3.3% |
| Southwest Airlines | 1,926 | 1.8%below the others | 2.6% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,150 | 2.5%about level | 2.8% |
| Spirit Airlines | 4,380 | 3.3%above the others | 2.3% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from DTW and MCO, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from DTW on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: DTW (airlines), MCO, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 6,448 | 75.4% | 0.87% | -4 min | 9.4% |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,699 | 82.9% | 0.97% | -13 min | 6.4% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,407 | 74.2% | 1.92% | -9 min | 12.2% |
| Southwest Airlines | 252 | 69.6% | 1.19% | 1 min | 10.5% |
Delta Air Lines flew 54.6% of the 11,806 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 1.92% of its flights here against 0.87% for Delta Air Lines.
Spirit Airlines arrived on time 13.3 percentage points more often than Southwest Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 10.5 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 66.0%
- Feb: 81.0%
- Mar: 74.8%
- Apr: 84.3%
- May: 79.5%
- Jun: 74.5%
- Jul: 69.7%
- Aug: 73.1%
- Sep: 86.6%
- Oct: 86.9%
- Nov: 82.8%
- Dec: 74.5%
January is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 20.9 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 70.7% from 331 flights
- August 2023: 72.8% from 341 flights
- September 2023: 83.5% from 293 flights
- October 2023: 88.4% from 341 flights
- November 2023: 82.3% from 351 flights
- December 2023: 87.0% from 370 flights
- January 2024: 65.9% from 358 flights
- February 2024: 85.5% from 365 flights
- March 2024: 71.5% from 407 flights
- April 2024: 86.7% from 349 flights
- May 2024: 79.3% from 330 flights
- June 2024: 75.6% from 301 flights
- July 2024: 65.9% from 279 flights
- August 2024: 70.7% from 303 flights
- September 2024: 90.4% from 229 flights
- October 2024: 87.1% from 269 flights
- November 2024: 89.5% from 287 flights
- December 2024: 72.4% from 322 flights
- January 2025: 71.2% from 308 flights
- February 2025: 76.0% from 338 flights
- March 2025: 82.3% from 429 flights
- April 2025: 83.9% from 349 flights
- May 2025: 79.7% from 305 flights
- June 2025: 69.2% from 303 flights
- July 2025: 71.3% from 303 flights
- August 2025: 75.9% from 293 flights
- September 2025: 86.8% from 250 flights
- October 2025: 85.3% from 321 flights
- November 2025: 76.7% from 293 flights
- December 2025: 62.8% from 343 flights
- January 2026: 61.2% from 331 flights
- February 2026: 81.1% from 354 flights
- March 2026: 70.2% from 413 flights
- April 2026: 82.4% from 343 flights
- May 2026: 79.4% from 224 flights
- June 2026: 80.4% from 212 flights
- July 2026: 70.2% from 268 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 75.5% against 78.4% in the 12 months before — declining by 2.9 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,806 DTW → 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