Route reliability record
SAN→MCO
San Diego to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,087
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,149 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That rests on 1,087 SAN to MCO flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 459 at 78.3% on time.
Best time to fly SAN to MCO: a 8pm–5am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.4%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,073 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
78.3% on time across 459 flights
These figures cover 1,087 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: half 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 459 | 78.3% | 43 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 628 | 78.3% | 48 min | 0.48% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 78.3%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SAN to MCO
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 San Diego to Orlando
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. SAN → MCOSan Diego to Orlando | Alaska Airlines | 77.9% | 78.3% | 0.48% | 8pm–5am, Wed | AS 396 10:03 |
| 2. SAN → MCOSan Diego to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 77.8% | 78.3% | 0.65% | 8pm–5am, Sat | — |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am16 flights—
- 8am–11am580 flights75.5%
- 11am–2pm75 flights67.6%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am415 flights84.2%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 67.6% on time against 84.2% for 8pm–5am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 580 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SAN to MCO 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 SAN to MCO, the best departure window is 8pm–5am at 84.2% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 67.6%, a wide gap of 16.6 points. All US flights leaving 8pm–5am ran 70.1%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am75.5%
- 11am–2pm67.6%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am84.2%
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 33 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.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 57.8%. February is the strongest month at 90.4%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 33 points. July was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.3%, a spread of 10 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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 10,620 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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 actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 runs 76.7% on time across 1,086 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,087 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MCO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,087 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,073 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAN to MCO questions
How often is SAN to MCO delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 1,087 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 45 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SAN to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 78.3% on time across 459 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 78.3%, a gap of half 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 SAN to MCO?
The 8pm–5am departure window is the strongest at 84.2% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 67.6%, 17 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 SAN to MCO?
March is the weakest month at 57.8% on time, compared with 90.4% in February. Across the year that is 33 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
- MCO to SAN — the return legseparate record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on SAN to MCO78.3%
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to MCO78.3%
- SAN to SFO, a related route59.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SAN to DEN, a related route78.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record78.3%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record78.3%
- 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. SAN to MCO and MCO to SAN 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.