Route reliability record
MCO→SEA
Orlando to Seattle
- Flights
- 1,820
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,554 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,820 MCO to SEA flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,101 at 78.1% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to SEA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.7%, against 77.5% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,794 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
78.1% on time across 1,101 flights
These figures cover 1,820 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to SEA
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,101 | 78.1% | 55 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 719 | 76.7% | 61 min | 1.39% | B |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 78.1%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to SEA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to Seattle
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MCO → SEAOrlando to Seattle | Alaska Airlines | 77.5% | 78.1% | 0.82% | 8am–11am, Thu | AS 395 07:00 |
| 2. MCO → SEAOrlando to Seattle | Delta Air Lines | 75.6% | 76.7% | 1.39% | 8am–11am, Fri | DL 347 09:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am360 flights84.6%
- 8am–11am585 flights85.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm85 flights79.8%
- 5pm–8pm756 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am34 flights71.9%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.9% of the time, against 67.7% for the evening window. That is 18 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 756 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to SEA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MCO to SEA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 85.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.7%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am84.6%
- 8–11am85.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm79.8%
- 5–8pm67.7%
- 8pm–5am71.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 68.0% on time, against 89.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.7% on time and Saturday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 5 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 23,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 23,308 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 85.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,554 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 82.1% on time across 1,818 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,820 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SEA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.0% on time and December 68.0%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,794 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to SEA questions
How often is MCO to SEA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 1,820 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to SEA?
Alaska Airlines leads at 78.1% on time across 1,101 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 76.7%, a gap of about a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MCO to SEA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.7%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on MCO to SEA?
December is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 89.0% in September. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- SEA to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on MCO to SEA78.1%
- Delta Air Lines on MCO to SEA76.7%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- LAX to SEA, a related route85.0%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MCO to SEA and SEA to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed MCO to SEA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.