Route reliability record
SJU→MCO
San Juan to Orlando
- Flights
- 6,134
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,188 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 6,134 SJU to MCO flights, of which Frontier Airlines flew 1,348 at 80.5% on time.
Best time to fly SJU to MCO: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.1%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
Frontier Airlines is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 80.5% on time across 1,348 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,043 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.21%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
80.5% on time across 1,348 flights
These figures cover 6,134 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 SJU to MCO
The four carriers here are closely matched: 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 1,348 | 80.5% | 131 min | 1.34% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,108 | 79.6% | 45 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 484 | 78.2% | 82 min | 2.27% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 2,194 | 74.8% | 76 min | 1.55% | C |
No carrier stands out. Frontier tops the table at 80.5%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on SJU 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 San Juan 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. SJU → MCOSan Juan to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 79.4% | 80.5% | 1.34% | 8am–11am, Fri | F9 2249 18:09 |
| 2. SJU → MCOSan Juan to Orlando | Southwest Airlines | 79.2% | 79.6% | 0.52% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. SJU → MCOSan Juan to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 76.4% | 78.2% | 2.27% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 4. SJU → MCOSan Juan to Orlando | JetBlue Airways | 73.6% | 74.8% | 1.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 1434 05:01 |
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 24 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,171 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am788 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm881 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm987 flights66.8%
- 5pm–8pm878 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am1,429 flights73.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 66.8% 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. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 1,429 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SJU 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 SJU to MCO, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 66.8%, a wide gap of 23.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.5%
- 8–11am89.4%
- 11am–2pm80.9%
- 2–5pm66.8%
- 5–8pm67.4%
- 8pm–5am73.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 68.7% on time, 18 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. July was the busiest month here, with 647 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 63% of the 103,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
63% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 103,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 63 to one. The split is drawn from 102,785 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 90.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.21% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.8% on time across 6,141 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,134 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. November runs 86.4% on time and July 68.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,043 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SJU to MCO questions
How often is SJU to MCO delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 6,134 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on SJU to MCO?
Frontier Airlines leads at 80.5% on time across 1,348 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 74.8%, a gap of 6 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 90.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.8%, 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 July delays on SJU to MCO?
July is the weakest month at 68.7% on time, compared with 86.4% in November. Across the year that is 18 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
- Frontier Airlines on SJU to MCO80.5%
- Southwest Airlines on SJU to MCO79.6%
- Spirit Airlines on SJU to MCO78.2%
- JetBlue Airways on SJU to MCO74.8%
- SJU to JFK, a related route77.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- SJU to MIA, a related route78.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record80.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record78.2%
- 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.
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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.