Carrier route record
WNMCO→SAN
Southwest Airlines · Orlando to San Diego
- Flights
- 459
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 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, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 459 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on MCO to SAN runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 80 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 453 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.7%
Every carrier on MCO to SAN, 1,086 flights
These figures cover 459 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on MCO to SAN
Southwest flew 459 of the 1,086 flights on MCO to SAN, about 42% of it. Its 69.3% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 82.2% to Southwest at 69.3%.
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 | 627 | 82.2% | 60 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 459 | 69.3% | 49 min | 0.65% | C+ |
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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 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am73 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am74 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm136 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm175 flights54.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.3% on time, against 93.0% 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 175 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 75.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on MCO to SAN runs when it is late
The 139 late arrivals split 56 under half an hour, 48 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early100 flights22.1%
- Within 15 min214 flights47.2%
- 15–29 min late56 flights12.4%
- 30–59 min late48 flights10.6%
- 1–2 hours late26 flights5.7%
- 2+ hours late9 flights2.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 453 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 184 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 64 still arrived on time. 19 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on MCO to SAN
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 May 2026, 4 hours 55 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 May 2026 | 4 hours 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 24 June 2026 | 3 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 June 2026 | 2 hours 52 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 October 2025 | 2 hours 39 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 27 December 2025 | 2 hours 26 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 6,827 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,827 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 6,827 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 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, below the national 1.89% 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 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 50 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 78.3% on time across 459 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. 459 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. 459 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 69.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 453 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 SAN82.2%
- 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 7.05 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.