D

MCO to BUF flight delays

Orlando, FL (MCO) Buffalo, NY (BUF) · 1,011 miles

1,771 flights · January 2025 – August 2026 · US Bureau of Transportation Statistics

68.12%

Arrived on time

Within 15 minutes of schedule

1.19%

Cancelled

Share of scheduled flights

59 min

When late, late by

Average across delayed arrivals

20 min

Delay per flight

Averaged over every flight flown

What the record says about this route

Which airline you fly changes the odds here. Frontier Airlines arrived on time 9.8 points more often than Southwest Airlines over the same period on the same route — same airports, same weather, same air traffic control. A gap that survives all of that is about how the two airlines are run.

The season swings this route hard. In September it ran 20.8 points more punctual than in March — a difference bigger than the one between the best and worst airlines on most routes. If the date is flexible, it is worth more than the carrier.

The two directions do not behave alike. BUF to MCO arrives on time 8.1 points more often than the outbound. Delay accumulates through the flying day, so whichever direction is scheduled later tends to carry the worse record — which is an argument for booking the morning departure if the choice exists.

Flights from Orlando to Buffalo run late more often than the average route, though not severely.

Which airline should you fly on this route?

Over January 2025 – August 2026, Frontier Airlines arrived on time most often on MCO to BUF. Southwest Airlines was late most often. Flights ran closest to schedule in September and worst in March.

Every airline on MCO to BUF

Ranked by how many flights each one operated. A carrier with fewer than 100 flights in the period is listed but not graded.

Airline Flights On time Cancelled Avg delay Grade
Southwest Airlines 950 66.24% 0.95% 51 min D
JetBlue Airways 533 67.18% 1.5% 70 min D
Frontier Airlines 288 76.06% 1.39% 69 min C

Month by month

Share of flights that arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, by month flown.

Jul 2025 peak 81 Jun 2026
On-time arrival rate, %

Common questions

Are flights from Orlando to Buffalo usually delayed?

68.12% of flights on the MCO to BUF route arrived within 15 minutes of schedule, so roughly 3 in every ten arrived late. That is worse than the average route in this record.

Which airline is most on time from Orlando to Buffalo?

Frontier Airlines, at 76.06% on time across 288 flights. The least punctual on the route was Southwest Airlines at 66.24%.

How often are MCO to BUF flights cancelled?

1.19% of scheduled flights did not operate — about 12 in every thousand. That is in the normal range.

What is the best month to fly Orlando to Buffalo?

September, when 81.4% of flights arrived on time. The worst was March at 60.6%.

When MCO to BUF flights are late, how late are they?

About 59 minutes on average across the flights that arrived more than 15 minutes behind schedule.

What these figures do and do not tell you

Everything on this page is counted from the flights that actually operated on MCO to BUF during January 2025 – August 2026, as reported by the airlines to the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. "On time" is the federal definition: arriving at the gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

A route's record is a description of the past, not a forecast. Weather, air traffic control and the aircraft's earlier flights that day drive most delays, and none of them are predictable from a historical rate. What the record does tell you is whether this route runs late more often than others, and which carrier on it has the better history — which is the part you can actually act on when you book.

Cancellations are counted separately from delays because they are a different problem for a traveller: a late flight still gets you there. How the grade is calculated →