Carrier route record
WNSAN→MCO
Southwest Airlines · San Diego to Orlando
- Flights
- 438
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 41%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on SAN to MCO lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 438 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 431 completed flights
Avg delay
44 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on SAN to MCO, 1,067 flights
These figures cover 438 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on SAN to MCO
Southwest flew 438 of the 1,067 flights on SAN to MCO, about 41% of it. Its 77.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 77.7% to Alaska at 76.5%.
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) | 438 | 77.7% | 44 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Alaska Airlines | 629 | 76.5% | 50 min | 0.79% | B+ |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am17 flights—
- 8am–11am226 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm56 flights67.9%
- 2pm–5pm21 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am118 flights84.5%
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 67.9% on time against 84.5% 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 226 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 85.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.1%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 4,232 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 4,232 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 4,232 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.81% 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 3.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 68.6% on time across 438 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. 438 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. 438 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 77.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 431 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 MCO76.5%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.