Route profile
MCO→IAH
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Orlando to Houston, 854 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 35% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,353 flights. How this is calculated
MCO → IAH arrives on time 78.7% of the time; the return trip, IAH → MCO, arrives on time 77.6% of the time.
MCO → IAH spends 27.9 minutes on the ground on an 854-mile trip: 17.6 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at MCO and 10.4 minutes from touchdown to gate at IAH.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why MCO → IAH flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
MCO → IAH cancelled 158 of 11,353 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 72. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 52.5% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 137 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 158 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.
83 cancellations, 52.5% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
47 cancellations, 29.7% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
28 cancellations, 17.7% 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.
158 coded cancellations were recorded on MCO → IAH; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
55 min late
against a median of 8 min early
MCO → IAH has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 8 min early, but the worst tenth are 63 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 11,353 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at IAH after arriving from MCO.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 35% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 9.3% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.2% | 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 1.39% of the time and diverts 0.27% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,164 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 55 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,353 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
MCO → IAH flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.6% of the time, against 68.4% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 20.2 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 93.1% on time from 161 flights
- 6 AM: 89.9% on time from 255 flights
- 7 AM: 90.0% on time from 1,385 flights
- 8 AM: 80.5% on time from 371 flights
- 9 AM: 85.5% on time from 1,521 flights
- 10 AM: 81.2% on time from 233 flights
- 11 AM: 85.3% on time from 1,164 flights
- 12 PM: 78.9% on time from 363 flights
- 1 PM: 81.2% on time from 795 flights
- 2 PM: 75.3% on time from 675 flights
- 3 PM: 78.8% on time from 955 flights
- 4 PM: 67.8% on time from 402 flights
- 5 PM: 64.5% on time from 1,151 flights
- 6 PM: 67.1% on time from 461 flights
- 7 PM: 69.4% on time from 782 flights
- 8 PM: 68.9% on time from 260 flights
- 9 PM: 63.3% on time from 132 flights
- 10 PM: 72.4% on time from 166 flights
- 11 PM: 68.3% on time from 121 flights
Why MCO → IAH runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s 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 MCO → IAH. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on MCO → IAH, at 36.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.6% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 68.4%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of MCO to IAH: 3.2 times the normal rate at MCO and 3.4 times at IAH. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: MCO 4.0% against 1.3%, IAH 4.1% against 1.2%. 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 | MCO | IAH |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 4.0% | 4.1% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.3% | 1.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 54.1% | 63.8% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 76.3% | 78.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 33,297 | 28,922 |
Of the carriers on this route, Southwest Airlines (3.3% cancelled against 4.4% for the other carriers at MCO) cancelled the fewest departures from MCO in bad weather and Spirit Airlines (5.7% cancelled against 3.9% for the other carriers at MCO) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at MCO
All departures from MCO| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 9,331 | 3.3%below the others | 4.4% |
| United Airlines | 2,988 | 3.3%below the others | 4.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 3,840 | 4.7%above the others | 3.9% |
| Spirit Airlines | 4,014 | 5.7%above the others | 3.9% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from MCO and IAH, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from MCO on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: MCO (airlines), IAH, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 7,115 | 81.0% | 1.34% | -10 min | 9.2% |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,388 | 73.3% | 1.88% | -3 min | 10.3% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,408 | 77.5% | 0.99% | -9 min | 8.9% |
| Southwest Airlines | 442 | 74.0% | 0.90% | -3 min | 9.2% |
United Airlines flew 62.7% of the 11,353 flights listed.
United Airlines arrived on time 7.7 percentage points more often than Spirit Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| F93469 Frontier Airlines | 4:36 PM | 601 | 74.5% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 8.8 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.8%
- Feb: 86.2%
- Mar: 76.0%
- Apr: 85.6%
- May: 72.2%
- Jun: 69.0%
- Jul: 66.6%
- Aug: 73.8%
- Sep: 85.5%
- Oct: 84.7%
- Nov: 85.0%
- Dec: 82.1%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 19.6 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 65.2% from 330 flights
- August 2023: 79.6% from 272 flights
- September 2023: 82.2% from 282 flights
- October 2023: 79.7% from 303 flights
- November 2023: 82.0% from 358 flights
- December 2023: 82.8% from 385 flights
- January 2024: 73.0% from 332 flights
- February 2024: 86.1% from 303 flights
- March 2024: 68.8% from 365 flights
- April 2024: 83.6% from 299 flights
- May 2024: 64.8% from 310 flights
- June 2024: 68.9% from 305 flights
- July 2024: 60.3% from 318 flights
- August 2024: 72.4% from 302 flights
- September 2024: 83.7% from 289 flights
- October 2024: 90.9% from 309 flights
- November 2024: 89.2% from 326 flights
- December 2024: 78.8% from 297 flights
- January 2025: 79.4% from 272 flights
- February 2025: 85.7% from 261 flights
- March 2025: 78.3% from 324 flights
- April 2025: 87.0% from 270 flights
- May 2025: 69.1% from 311 flights
- June 2025: 64.6% from 297 flights
- July 2025: 68.6% from 306 flights
- August 2025: 69.9% from 299 flights
- September 2025: 91.0% from 270 flights
- October 2025: 83.7% from 309 flights
- November 2025: 83.8% from 294 flights
- December 2025: 84.4% from 315 flights
- January 2026: 88.8% from 350 flights
- February 2026: 86.7% from 318 flights
- March 2026: 81.4% from 366 flights
- April 2026: 86.4% from 311 flights
- May 2026: 83.9% from 275 flights
- June 2026: 74.1% from 257 flights
- July 2026: 72.9% from 263 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 82.5% against 78.9% in the 12 months before — improving by 3.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,353 MCO → IAH 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