Route reliability record
SEA→MCO
Seattle to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,818
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,554 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,818 SEA to MCO flights, of which Alaska Airlines flew 1,099 at 83.6% on time.
Best time to fly SEA to MCO: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.9%, against 82.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,791 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Alaska
83.6% on time across 1,099 flights
These figures cover 1,818 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to MCO
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines | 1,099 | 83.6% | 41 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 719 | 79.7% | 58 min | 1.39% | B |
No carrier stands out. Alaska tops the table at 83.6%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SEA 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 Seattle 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. SEA → MCOSeattle to Orlando | Alaska Airlines | 83.4% | 83.6% | 0.27% | 2pm–5pm, Wed | AS 420 09:47 |
| 2. SEA → MCOSeattle to Orlando | Delta Air Lines | 78.6% | 79.7% | 1.39% | 8pm–5am, Tue | DL 448 23:15 |
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 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am86 flights71.1%
- 8am–11am811 flights78.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm214 flights88.5%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am707 flights85.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 88.5% on time, ahead of 5am–8am at 71.1%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 811 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA 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 SEA to MCO, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 88.5% on time and the worst is 5am–8am at 71.1%, a wide gap of 17.4 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am71.1%
- 8–11am78.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm88.5%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am85.1%
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 22 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.
July is the worst month at 70.9% on time, 22 points below February, the best at 92.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. March was the busiest month here, with 165 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.0%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 43% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%Carrier
- 35%National Airspace System
- 16%Late-arriving aircraft
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,705 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,558 reported delay minutes.
35% 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 5,501 minutes out of 16,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, 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 3.4% 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 2,554 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 77.5% on time across 1,820 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,818 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 MCO 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. February runs 92.9% on time and July 70.9%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,791 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to MCO questions
How often is SEA to MCO delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.9% of the 1,818 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SEA to MCO?
Alaska Airlines leads at 83.6% on time across 1,099 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 79.7%, a gap of 4 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 SEA to MCO?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 88.5% on time. The 5am–8am window is the weakest at 71.1%, 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 July delays on SEA to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 70.9% on time, compared with 92.9% in February. Across the year that is 22 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 SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Alaska Airlines on SEA to MCO83.6%
- Delta Air Lines on SEA to MCO79.7%
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. SEA to MCO and MCO to SEA 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.