Route reliability record
MCO→SJU
Orlando to San Juan
- Flights
- 6,141
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,188 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,141 MCO to SJU flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 1,350 at 76.6% on time.
Best time to fly MCO to SJU: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.0%, against 73.8% for the route overall.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.6% on time across 1,350 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,068 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
76.6% on time across 1,350 flights
These figures cover 6,141 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MCO to SJU
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Frontier Airlines arrives on time 76.6% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 69.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,112 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 1,350 | 76.6% | 78 min | 1.33% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 483 | 75.9% | 65 min | 1.24% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,196 | 75.5% | 69 min | 1.50% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,112 | 69.9% | 49 min | 0.62% | C+ |
Frontier leads Southwest by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on MCO to SJU
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Orlando to San Juan
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 → SJUOrlando to San Juan | Frontier Airlines | 75.6% | 76.6% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 2250 06:00 |
| 2. MCO → SJUOrlando to San Juan | Spirit Airlines | 75.0% | 75.9% | 1.24% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. MCO → SJUOrlando to San Juan | JetBlue Airways | 74.4% | 75.5% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1233 05:01 |
| 4. MCO → SJUOrlando to San Juan | Southwest Airlines | 69.5% | 69.9% | 0.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 34 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,273 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am833 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm1,050 flights71.7%
- 2pm–5pm766 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm932 flights63.7%
- 8pm–5am1,287 flights58.8%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.8% on time, against 92.3% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,287 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MCO to SJU 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 SJU, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 58.8%, a wide gap of 33.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.3%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm71.7%
- 2–5pm73.1%
- 5–8pm63.7%
- 8pm–5am58.8%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 82.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 645 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.7%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 99,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 99,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 98,905 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 36,000 of the 99,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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.
The 1,188 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.0% on time across 6,134 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,141 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 SJU 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 82.6% on time and March 65.3%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 6,068 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MCO to SJU questions
How often is MCO to SJU delayed?
About 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 26.2% of the 6,141 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 SJU?
Frontier Airlines leads at 76.6% on time across 1,350 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 69.9%, a gap of 7 points. 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 SJU?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 58.8%, 34 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 March delays on MCO to SJU?
March is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 82.6% in September. Across the year that is 17 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
- SJU to MCO — the return legseparate record
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on MCO to SJU76.6%
- Spirit Airlines on MCO to SJU75.9%
- JetBlue Airways on MCO to SJU75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on MCO to SJU69.9%
- MCO to ATL, a related route74.9%
- JFK to SJU, a related route70.2%
- MCO to EWR, a related route75.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record75.9%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record75.5%
- 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 SJU and SJU to MCO are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.