Carrier route record
UAMCO→SFO
United Airlines · Orlando to San Francisco
- Flights
- 1,100
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on MCO to SFO lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,100 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's MCO to SFO record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 43 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,095 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.27%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.7%
Every carrier on MCO to SFO, 1,378 flights
These figures cover 1,100 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on MCO to SFO
United flew 1,100 of the 1,378 flights on MCO to SFO, most of the route. Its 81.6% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 81.6% to Alaska at 72.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,100 | 81.6% | 64 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 278 | 72.5% | 62 min | 0.72% | C+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on MCO to SFO
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Departure window
When United 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.
- 5am–8am201 flights95.0%
- 8am–11am438 flights88.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm24 flights—
- 5pm–8pm415 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am22 flights—
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 95.0% of the time, against 69.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 438 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on MCO to SFO through the year
June is the worst month at 70.7% on time, 20 points below March, the best at 90.4%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on MCO to SFO runs when it is late
United on MCO to SFO often beats the schedule: 432 of 1,095 completed flights, 39%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 202 late arrivals split 79 under half an hour, 51 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 72 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early432 flights39.5%
- Within 15 min461 flights42.1%
- 15–29 min late79 flights7.2%
- 30–59 min late51 flights4.7%
- 1–2 hours late49 flights4.5%
- 2+ hours late23 flights2.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,095 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 229 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 76 still arrived on time. 49 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on MCO to SFO
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 February 2026, 9 hours 30 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 February 2026 | 9 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 December 2025 | 7 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 October 2025 | 4 hours 28 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 March 2026 | 4 hours | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 53% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%National Airspace System
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 6,872 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 12,874 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.27%, 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
6.6% 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 2,446 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 86.6% on time across 1,098 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 1,100 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on MCO to SFO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 90.4% on time and June 70.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,095 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MCO to SFO, every carrier
- United on SFO to MCO, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on MCO to SFO72.5%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.