Carrier route record

ASMCO→SAN

Alaska Airlines · Orlando to San Diego

Flights: 629
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on MCO to SAN lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 629 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Alaska on MCO to SAN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 623 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.79%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.9%

Every carrier on MCO to SAN, 1,067 flights

These figures cover 629 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on MCO to SAN

Alaska flew 629 of the 1,067 flights on MCO to SAN, most of the route. Its 80.9% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 80.9% to Southwest at 68.6%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on MCO to SAN
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Alaska Airlines (this page)	629	80.9%	64 min	0.79%	B+
Southwest Airlines	438	68.6%	47 min	0.46%	C+

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on MCO to SAN

AS 39718:1372.4% · 362 flights

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 25 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am245 flights93.4%
8am–11am26 flights—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm56 flights87.5%
5pm–8pm302 flights68.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.4% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 25 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 302 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on MCO to SAN through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.February best, August worst

August is the worst month at 62.5% on time, 30 points below February, the best at 92.9%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.9%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 7,581 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
National Airspace System
25%
Extreme weather
17%
Carrier
15%

Extreme weather accounts for 17% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.7 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 7,581 reported delay minutes.

44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 7,581 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.

Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.

At 2,149 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.5% on time across 629 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 629 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Alaska on MCO to SAN

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 629 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 623 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures