Carrier performance at one airport
DL→TPA
Delta Air Lines at Tampa International
- Departures
- 13,976
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 12
- Rank here
- #2 of 9
Delta Air Lines at Tampa 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 13,976 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,798 at 80.8% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs 2 points ahead of the 77.5% 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
79.7%
13,713 completed departures
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.65%
At TPA, this carrier only
Rank here
#2
Of 9 carriers clearing the floor at TPA
These figures cover 14,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 80.8% of the time; Envoy Air manages 71.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,103 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,798 | 80.8% | 75 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 13,976 | 79.7% | 78 min | 1.65% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 23,901 | 78.1% | 56 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 13,930 | 76.9% | 93 min | 2.08% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,609 | 74.4% | 85 min | 1.98% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,481 | 74.1% | 77 min | 2.79% | C |
| JetBlue Airways | 5,214 | 73.5% | 74 min | 2.57% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 987 | 72.8% | 55 min | 1.01% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,103 | 71.5% | 73 min | 1.99% | C |
United leads Envoy by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh 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 | 4,426 | 80.3% | 77 min | 1.22% | B |
| TPA to DTW · Detroit | 1,715 | 81.6% | 73 min | 1.22% | B |
| TPA to LGA · New York | 1,638 | 71.5% | 87 min | 3.36% | C− |
| TPA to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,183 | 82.0% | 66 min | 0.93% | B+ |
| TPA to BOS · Boston | 1,168 | 75.6% | 78 min | 2.14% | B |
| TPA to JFK · New York | 1,094 | 82.3% | 79 min | 2.83% | B |
| TPA to LAX · Los Angeles | 661 | 81.6% | 59 min | 1.36% | B |
| TPA to RDU · Raleigh | 648 | 85.4% | 85 min | 1.70% | A |
| TPA to SEA · Seattlethin sample | 363 | 86.9% | 74 min | 0.83% | A+ |
| TPA to SLC · Salt Lake Citythin sample | 363 | 87.3% | 61 min | 0.55% | A+ |
| TPA to CVG · Cincinnatithin sample | 359 | 70.1% | 101 min | 1.11% | C |
| TPA to AUS · Austinthin sample | 358 | 78.5% | 80 min | 1.40% | 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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am3,187 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am1,885 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm2,971 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm2,063 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm2,621 flights70.3%
- 8pm–5am1,249 flights66.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 66.1% for the overnight window. That is 25 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
Seasonal pattern
July is the worst month at 68.2% on time, 20 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.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% 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 216,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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.
Cancellations sit at 1.65% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
8.3% 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.
13,976 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 68.2%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at TPA
How often is Delta Air Lines at TPA 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 20.3% of the 13,976 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 Delta Air Lines at TPA?
United Airlines leads at 80.8% on time across 8,798 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 71.5%, a gap of 9 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 90.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.1%, 25 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 68.2% on time, compared with 88.2% in April. Across the year that is 20 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, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.