Carrier route record

ASSAN→MCO

Alaska Airlines · San Diego to Orlando

Flights: 628
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 58%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska on SAN to MCO 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 roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 628 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Alaska on SAN to MCO from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 622 completed flights

Avg delay

48 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.48%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

78.3%

Every carrier on SAN to MCO, 1,087 flights

These figures cover 628 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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

Alaska against every carrier on SAN to MCO

Alaska flew 628 of the 1,087 flights on SAN to MCO, most of the route. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 78.3% to Alaska at 78.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SAN to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Southwest Airlines	459	78.3%	43 min	0.65%	B+
Alaska Airlines (this page)	628	78.3%	48 min	0.48%	B+

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on SAN to MCO

AS 39610:0372.8% · 364 flights

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.

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am—
8am–11am331 flights73.5%
11am–2pm34 flights63.6%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am263 flights86.2%

Scale runs 55% 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 63.6% on time against 86.2% 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 331 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SAN to MCO through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.June best, March worst

Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 48.3%. June is the strongest month at 91.7%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 43 points. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 11 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Alaska on SAN to MCO runs when it is late

Alaska on SAN to MCO often beats the schedule: 212 of 622 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 135 late arrivals split 59 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 27 an hour or more.

15+ min early212 flights34.1%
Within 15 min275 flights44.2%
15–29 min late59 flights9.5%
30–59 min late49 flights7.9%
1–2 hours late20 flights3.2%
2+ hours late7 flights1.1%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 622 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 150 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 63 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 48 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at MCO.

The worst days

Worst days for Alaska on SAN to MCO

The latest arrival of the period was on 24 October 2025, 6 hours 29 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.

The latest arrivals of Alaska on SAN to MCO in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
24 October 2025	6 hours 29 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
18 September 2025	3 hours 33 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
8 March 2026	3 hours 29 minutes	Extreme weather
28 March 2026	2 hours 58 minutes	Carrier
16 March 2026	2 hours 41 minutes	National Airspace System

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

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 6,454 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
34%
Carrier
19%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
1%

34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 6,454 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 6,454 reported delay minutes.

38% 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 2,441 minutes out of 6,454, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations are rare at 0.48%, 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

Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.3% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.2% on time across 627 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 628 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 Alaska on SAN to MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 628 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. 622 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures