Carrier route record
UASFO→MCO
United Airlines · San Francisco to Orlando
- Flights
- 1,098
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 80%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on SFO to MCO 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 1,098 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's SFO to MCO record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 93 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,089 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.18%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
86.0%
Every carrier on SFO to MCO, 1,376 flights
These figures cover 1,098 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
United against every carrier on SFO to MCO
United flew 1,098 of the 1,376 flights on SFO to MCO, most of the route. Its 86.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 86.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 86.6% to Alaska at 83.6%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,098 | 86.6% | 50 min | 0.18% | A+ |
| Alaska Airlinesthin sample | 278 | 83.6% | 51 min | 0.72% | B+ |
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
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–8am118 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am251 flights91.6%
- 11am–2pm170 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm113 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am446 flights86.3%
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 93.8% 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 446 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on SFO to MCO through the year
August is the worst month at 81.2% on time, 16 points below October, the best at 97.2%. 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 114 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 83.4%, a spread of 7 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on SFO to MCO runs when it is late
United on SFO to MCO often beats the schedule: 455 of 1,089 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 146 late arrivals split 68 under half an hour, 43 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 35 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early455 flights41.8%
- Within 15 min488 flights44.8%
- 15–29 min late68 flights6.2%
- 30–59 min late43 flights3.9%
- 1–2 hours late25 flights2.3%
- 2+ hours late10 flights0.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,089 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 165 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 60 still arrived on time. 41 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on SFO to MCO
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 March 2026, 8 hours 20 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 March 2026 | 8 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 April 2026 | 4 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 4 hours 53 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 3 August 2026 | 3 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 May 2026 | 3 hours 1 minute | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 7,244 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 0%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 7,244 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 to one. The split is drawn from 7,244 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.18%, 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 3.2% 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 81.6% on time across 1,100 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 1,098 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on SFO to MCO
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 97.2% on time and August 81.2%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,089 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- SFO to MCO, every carrier
- United on MCO to SFO, the return leg
- Alaska Airlines on SFO to MCO83.6%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- San Francisco International (SFO) 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.