Carrier performance at one airport
AA→TPA
American Airlines at Tampa International
- Departures
- 13,821
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 8
- Rank here
- #3 of 9
American Airlines at Tampa lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 13,821 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,554 at 82.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs half a point behind the 78.2% weighted average across all carriers at TPA. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
13,509 completed departures
Avg delay
94 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.96%
At TPA, this carrier only
Rank here
#3
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at TPA
These figures cover 14,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Against the competition
Every carrier at TPA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 82.2% of the time; Envoy Air manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,109 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,554 | 82.2% | 76 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 14,082 | 80.6% | 79 min | 1.75% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 13,821 | 78.1% | 94 min | 1.96% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 23,749 | 77.5% | 55 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,533 | 77.2% | 82 min | 1.96% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 5,131 | 73.9% | 77 min | 3.49% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 986 | 73.6% | 53 min | 0.91% | C+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,289 | 73.1% | 75 min | 3.76% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 1,109 | 72.5% | 70 min | 1.98% | C |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where American Airlines flies from TPA
American Airlines operates 8 routes out of TPA with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TPA to CLT · Charlotte | 2,886 | 83.6% | 80 min | 1.52% | B |
| TPA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,608 | 75.3% | 92 min | 2.99% | B |
| TPA to MIA · Miami | 2,516 | 79.9% | 111 min | 0.72% | B+ |
| TPA to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,712 | 74.7% | 93 min | 2.51% | C |
| TPA to DCA · Washington | 1,524 | 74.3% | 87 min | 2.89% | C |
| TPA to ORD · Chicago | 1,154 | 73.8% | 92 min | 1.91% | C |
| TPA to PHX · Phoenix | 729 | 79.5% | 91 min | 0.55% | B+ |
| TPA to LGA · New York | 683 | 82.4% | 136 min | 2.49% | B |
Flight by flight
American Airlines flight numbers from TPA
2 American Airlines flight numbers leaving TPA flew their main route often enough to have a record of their own. Grouped by destination.
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3,265 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am2,913 flights85.5%
- 11am–2pm2,600 flights79.0%
- 2pm–5pm2,168 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm2,684 flights60.9%
- 8pm–5am191 flights59.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 91.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 3,265 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
August is the worst month at 72.1% on time, 13 points below September, the best at 84.9%. 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 1,342 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 279,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 278,635 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
9.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
13,821 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.9% on time and August 72.1%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 13,509 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
American Airlines at TPA
How often is American Airlines at TPA 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 21.9% of the 13,821 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on American Airlines at TPA?
United Airlines leads at 82.2% on time across 8,554 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 10 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 American Airlines at TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.5%, 32 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 American Airlines at TPA?
August is the weakest month at 72.1% on time, compared with 84.9% in September. Across the year that is 13 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
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.