Carrier route record

ASSFO→MCO

Alaska Airlines · San Francisco to Orlando

Flights: 340
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 23%
Carriers: 3

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

Alaska on SFO to MCO earns a B+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about an hour. That rests on 340 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Alaska's SFO to MCO record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

84.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 335 completed flights

Avg delay

56 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.59%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

85.1%

Every carrier on SFO to MCO, 1,452 flights

These figures cover 340 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Alaska against every carrier on SFO to MCO

Alaska flew 340 of the 1,452 flights on SFO to MCO, about 23% of it. Its 84.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.6% to Frontier at 54.3%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 SFO to MCO
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	1,063	86.6%	55 min	0.28%	A+
Alaska Airlines (this page)thin sample	340	84.5%	56 min	0.59%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	49	54.3%	103 min	6.12%	F−

Flight by flight

Alaska flight numbers on SFO to MCO

AS 36807:0087.3% · 313 flights

Departure window

When Alaska runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 340 flights.

5am–8am151 flights91.8%
8am–11am162 flights83.2%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am27 flights—

Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 83.2% for the morning window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 162 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Alaska on SFO to MCO through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights91.1%
Oct–Dec 2025111 flights81.8%
Jan–Mar 202695 flights84.9%
Apr–Jun 202642 flights76.2%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 84.5% on time across 340 flights.

Alaska on SFO to MCO did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 91.1% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 76.2%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 85 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.6%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Alaska runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 56% of the 2,932 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.

Carrier
56%
National Airspace System
29%
Late-arriving aircraft
15%

The largest share of delay minutes, 56%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,644 of the 2,932 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 2,932 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.59%, 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 4.2% 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 2,446 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 67.7% on time across 340 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 340 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 SFO to MCO

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 340 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 84.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 335 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures