Carrier performance at one airport
AA→TPA
American Airlines at Tampa International
- Departures
- 13,895
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Routes
- 8
- Rank here
- #4 of 9
American Airlines at Tampa lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 13,895 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,735 at 81.4% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, American Airlines runs about a point behind the 78.1% 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
77.3%
13,559 completed departures
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.07%
At TPA, this carrier only
Rank here
#4
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at TPA
These figures cover 14,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Against the competition
Every carrier at TPA, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 81.4% of the time; Envoy Air manages 73.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,101 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,735 | 81.4% | 75 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 13,993 | 80.8% | 78 min | 1.64% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 23,836 | 77.9% | 55 min | 0.95% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 13,895 | 77.3% | 93 min | 2.07% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,558 | 76.3% | 81 min | 1.78% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,084 | 74.2% | 76 min | 2.95% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 5,215 | 74.2% | 75 min | 2.61% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 987 | 73.9% | 52 min | 1.01% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,101 | 73.5% | 74 min | 1.91% | C |
United leads Envoy by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 | 2,981 | 83.1% | 76 min | 1.58% | B |
| TPA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,579 | 74.9% | 92 min | 3.61% | C− |
| TPA to MIA · Miami | 2,567 | 78.0% | 103 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| TPA to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,674 | 74.6% | 96 min | 2.09% | C |
| TPA to DCA · Washington | 1,521 | 73.2% | 85 min | 2.76% | C |
| TPA to ORD · Chicago | 1,140 | 73.2% | 96 min | 1.93% | C |
| TPA to PHX · Phoenix | 734 | 78.7% | 89 min | 0.54% | B+ |
| TPA to LGA · New York | 690 | 78.5% | 122 min | 3.04% | B− |
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 34 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,326 flights91.9%
- 8am–11am2,823 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm2,694 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm2,021 flights70.1%
- 5pm–8pm2,758 flights58.9%
- 8pm–5am273 flights58.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 58.0% 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 3,326 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 65.5% on time, 19 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
- 29%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 7%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 286,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 split is drawn from 285,900 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.35%.
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
13,895 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 July 65.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 13,559 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 four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.7% of the 13,895 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 81.4% on time across 8,735 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 73.5%, a gap of 8 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 58.0%, 34 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 American Airlines at TPA?
July is the weakest month at 65.5% on time, compared with 84.9% in September. Across the year that is 19 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
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) all carriers
- TPA to CLT route record83.1%
- TPA to DFW route record74.9%
- TPA to MIA route record78.0%
- TPA to PHL route record74.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.