Carrier route record
WNSAN→MCO
Southwest Airlines · San Diego to Orlando
- Flights
- 459
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 42%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest 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 45 minutes on average. That rests on 459 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on SAN to MCO 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 451 completed flights
Avg delay
43 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.65%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on SAN to MCO, 1,087 flights
These figures cover 459 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 3 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
Southwest against every carrier on SAN to MCO
Southwest flew 459 of the 1,087 flights on SAN to MCO, about 42% of it. Its 78.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 459 | 78.3% | 43 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 628 | 78.3% | 48 min | 0.48% | B+ |
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 Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am16 flights—
- 8am–11am249 flights78.3%
- 11am–2pm41 flights70.7%
- 2pm–5pm1 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am152 flights80.7%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. 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 70.7% on time against 80.7% 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 249 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on SAN to MCO through the year
December is the weak month at 54.8% on time, against 96.1% in April. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 58 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 17 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on SAN to MCO runs when it is late
The 98 late arrivals split 47 under half an hour, 40 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 11 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early108 flights23.9%
- Within 15 min245 flights54.3%
- 15–29 min late47 flights10.4%
- 30–59 min late40 flights8.9%
- 1–2 hours late6 flights1.3%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 451 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 137 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 59 still arrived on time. 20 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on SAN to MCO
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 September 2025, 4 hours 41 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 September 2025 | 4 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 July 2026 | 3 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 January 2026 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 January 2026 | 3 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 2 hours 1 minute | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 4,166 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 2%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,166 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. The split is drawn from 4,166 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.65%, 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 2.4% 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 69.3% on time across 459 flights, 9 points below 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 459 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 Southwest on SAN to MCO
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 459 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. 451 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SAN to MCO, every carrier
- Southwest on MCO to SAN, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SAN to MCO78.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- San Diego International (SAN) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.