Carrier route record
WNMCO→SAN
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to San Diego
- Flights
- 438
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on MCO to SAN sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 438 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on MCO to SAN runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 90 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 433 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on MCO to SAN, 1,067 flights
These figures cover 438 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to SAN
Southwest flew 438 of the 1,067 flights on MCO to SAN, about 41% of it. Its 68.6% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 629 | 80.9% | 64 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 438 | 68.6% | 47 min | 0.46% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 37 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–8am49 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am89 flights83.0%
- 11am–2pm20 flights—
- 2pm–5pm133 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm147 flights54.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.5% on time, against 91.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 147 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on MCO to SAN through the year
Delays peak in October, when the on-time rate falls to 40.0%. March is the strongest month at 82.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 42 points. June was the busiest month here, with 58 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 75.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 60.9%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 6,400 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
48% 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 6,400 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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. The split is drawn from 6,400 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.46%, 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
6.9% 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 roughly 45 minutes, 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 77.7% on time across 438 flights, 9 points above 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 438 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 Southwest on MCO to SAN
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 438 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 68.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 433 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to SAN, every carrier
- Southwest on SAN to MCO, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on MCO to SAN80.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.