Carrier performance at one airport
DL→TPA
Delta Air Lines at Tampa International
- Departures
- 14,082
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Routes
- 12
- Rank here
- #2 of 9
Delta Air Lines at Tampa lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About 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 14,082 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,554 at 82.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 2 points ahead of 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
80.6%
13,800 completed departures
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.75%
At TPA, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at TPA
These figures cover 14,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
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 (this page) | 14,082 | 80.6% | 79 min | 1.75% | B |
| American Airlines | 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 Delta Air Lines flies from TPA
Delta Air Lines operates 12 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 ATL · Atlanta | 4,451 | 81.4% | 80 min | 1.39% | B |
| TPA to LGA · New York | 1,724 | 72.8% | 85 min | 3.54% | C− |
| TPA to DTW · Detroit | 1,715 | 82.4% | 77 min | 1.17% | B |
| TPA to BOS · Boston | 1,169 | 77.1% | 76 min | 2.40% | B |
| TPA to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,168 | 81.9% | 71 min | 0.94% | B+ |
| TPA to JFK · New York | 1,094 | 82.3% | 81 min | 2.56% | B |
| TPA to LAX · Los Angeles | 660 | 83.5% | 62 min | 1.36% | B |
| TPA to RDU · Raleigh | 651 | 86.2% | 79 min | 2.00% | A |
| TPA to AUS · Austin | 365 | 80.2% | 104 min | 1.64% | B |
| TPA to SEA · Seattlethin sample | 363 | 84.3% | 41 min | 0.83% | B+ |
| TPA to SLC · Salt Lake Citythin sample | 363 | 90.6% | 55 min | 0.28% | A+ |
| TPA to CVG · Cincinnatithin sample | 359 | 71.5% | 102 min | 1.11% | C |
Flight by flight
Delta Air Lines flight numbers from TPA
12 Delta Air Lines 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 23 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3,242 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am1,788 flights90.3%
- 11am–2pm2,967 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm2,220 flights73.3%
- 5pm–8pm2,624 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am1,241 flights67.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 67.8% for the overnight window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 3,242 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 70.9% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 88.2%. 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 1,338 flights.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 212,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 211,629 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.75% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
7.9% 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.
14,082 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. April runs 88.2% on time and July 70.9%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 13,800 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at TPA
How often is Delta Air Lines at TPA delayed?
About 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 19.4% of the 14,082 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 Delta Air Lines 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 Delta Air Lines at TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.8%, 23 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 Delta Air Lines at TPA?
July is the weakest month at 70.9% on time, compared with 88.2% in April. Across the year that is 17 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.