Route reliability record
SJU→MCO
San Juan to Orlando
- Flights
- 6,034
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 1,188 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 6,034 flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 2,057 at 82.6% on time.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 82.6% on time across 2,057 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 5,957 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Southwest
82.6% on time across 2,057 flights
These figures cover 6,034 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 5 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
Which airline is most reliable on SJU to MCO
The four carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,057 | 82.6% | 49 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,213 | 78.1% | 121 min | 1.57% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 669 | 77.9% | 77 min | 1.64% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,095 | 77.3% | 73 min | 0.95% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Southwest tops the table at 82.6%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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 24 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am1,194 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am787 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm892 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm1,016 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm783 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am1,362 flights73.4%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 68.3% for the afternoon window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
August is the worst month at 71.8% on time, 15 points below November, the best at 86.4%. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 60% of the 94,000 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.
- 60%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
60% 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 94,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 60 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 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,188 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.8% on time across 6,037 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,034 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 86.4% on time and August 71.8%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else.
Common questions
SJU to MCO questions
How often is SJU to MCO delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 6,034 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SJU to MCO?
Southwest Airlines leads at 82.6% on time across 2,057 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 77.3%, a gap of 5 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 SJU to MCO?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.3%, 24 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 August delays on SJU to MCO?
August is the weakest month at 71.8% on time, compared with 86.4% in November. Across the year that is 15 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 SJU — the return legseparate record
- Luis Munoz Marin International (SJU) delay statistics
- Orlando International (MCO) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on-time record82.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record78.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.9%
- 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. SJU to MCO and MCO to SJU are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.