Route reliability record
SFO→MCO
San Francisco to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,376
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,446 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 1,376 SFO to MCO flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SFO to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.8%, against 86.0% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 87 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,363 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
86.6% on time across 1,098 flights
These figures cover 1,376 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 SFO to MCO
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 1,098 | 86.6% | 50 min | 0.18% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 278 | 83.6% | 51 min | 0.72% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on SFO 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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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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am207 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am413 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm170 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm113 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am473 flights84.3%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 75.2% for the afternoon window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 473 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 75.2%, a wide gap of 18.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.0%
- 8–11am88.3%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm75.2%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am84.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 97.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.7%, a spread of 7 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 9,551 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,551 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 42 to one. The split is drawn from 9,551 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.29%, 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 3.3% 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 2,446 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 79.7% on time across 1,378 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,376 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. October runs 97.0% on time and May 77.6%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of May before you think about anything else. 1,363 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to MCO questions
How often is SFO to MCO delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.0% of the 1,376 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is SFO to MCO compared with the rest of the country?
86.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 75.2%, 19 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 May delays on SFO to MCO?
May is the weakest month at 77.6% on time, compared with 97.0% in October. Across the year that is 19 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- United Airlines on SFO to MCO86.6%
- Alaska Airlines on SFO to MCO83.6%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- United Airlines on-time record86.6%
- Alaska Airlines on-time record83.6%
- 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. SFO to MCO and MCO to SFO 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.