Tampa, FL · departure reliability
TPA
Tampa International
- Departures
- 77,461
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 9
- US rank
- #28 by volume
Tampa
Tampa International lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 77,461 flights, of which United Airlines flew 8,735 at 81.4% on time.
United Airlines is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 81.4% on time across 8,735 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
81.4% on time here
These figures cover 77,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of TPA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 23,836 | 77.9% | 55 min | 0.95% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 13,993 | 80.8% | 78 min | 1.64% | B |
| American Airlines | 13,895 | 77.3% | 93 min | 2.07% | B |
| United Airlines | 8,735 | 81.4% | 75 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,558 | 76.3% | 81 min | 1.78% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 5,215 | 74.2% | 75 min | 2.61% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 3,084 | 74.2% | 76 min | 2.95% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,101 | 73.5% | 74 min | 1.91% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 987 | 73.9% | 52 min | 1.01% | 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
Busiest routes out of TPA
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from TPA, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 78.1%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TPA to ATL · Atlanta | 6,138 | 79.9% | 71 min | 1.25% | B |
| TPA to ORD · Chicago | 3,214 | 72.8% | 87 min | 1.52% | C |
| TPA to CLT · Charlotte | 3,204 | 82.9% | 77 min | 1.56% | B |
| TPA to DEN · Denver | 3,099 | 81.2% | 62 min | 0.39% | B+ |
| TPA to MIA · Miami | 2,945 | 77.3% | 100 min | 1.22% | B |
| TPA to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 2,907 | 75.2% | 90 min | 3.44% | B− |
| TPA to LGA · New York | 2,841 | 72.7% | 90 min | 3.31% | C− |
| TPA to BOS · Boston | 2,825 | 74.2% | 77 min | 2.55% | C |
| TPA to BWI · Baltimore | 2,717 | 80.5% | 58 min | 1.99% | B |
| TPA to EWR · Newark | 2,660 | 76.1% | 80 min | 2.18% | B |
| TPA to PHL · Philadelphia | 2,614 | 74.3% | 91 min | 2.10% | C |
| TPA to BNA · Nashville | 2,484 | 74.7% | 55 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| TPA to DTW · Detroit | 2,371 | 81.1% | 71 min | 1.86% | B |
| TPA to JFK · New York | 2,298 | 80.2% | 76 min | 3.09% | B− |
| TPA to DCA · Washington | 2,248 | 74.3% | 75 min | 2.31% | C |
| TPA to IAH · Houston | 1,650 | 84.7% | 83 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| TPA to MDW · Chicago | 1,602 | 75.2% | 58 min | 2.00% | B |
| TPA to AUS · Austin | 1,518 | 79.9% | 62 min | 0.53% | B+ |
| TPA to SJU · San Juan | 1,478 | 73.8% | 72 min | 1.49% | C |
| TPA to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,418 | 73.1% | 66 min | 2.61% | C |
| TPA to IAD · Washington | 1,368 | 83.7% | 74 min | 1.02% | B |
| TPA to DAL · Dallas | 1,305 | 77.1% | 56 min | 1.15% | B |
| TPA to RDU · Raleigh | 1,280 | 81.8% | 71 min | 1.64% | B |
| TPA to PHX · Phoenix | 1,223 | 80.1% | 78 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| TPA to STL · St. Louis | 1,223 | 83.7% | 56 min | 0.57% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave TPA
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 30 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am15,924 flights91.7%
- 8am–11am14,983 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm13,616 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm12,177 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm14,428 flights64.9%
- 8pm–5am6,333 flights62.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.2% on time, against 91.7% 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 15,924 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When TPA runs late
TPA'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 69.2% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 87.1%. 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 7,679 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.8%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why TPA gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 1.21 million delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 1.21 million reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 1,212,308 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 91.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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.
77,461 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.
What to do with this
Flying out of TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.1% on time and July 69.2%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 76,051 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA delay questions
How often is Tampa (TPA) delayed?
Roughly 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 21.9% of the 77,461 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Tampa (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 Tampa (TPA)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.2%, 30 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 Tampa (TPA)?
July is the weakest month at 69.2% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. 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
- TPA to ATL — Atlanta79.9%
- TPA to ORD — Chicago72.8%
- TPA to CLT — Charlotte82.9%
- TPA to DEN — Denver81.2%
- TPA to MIA — Miami77.3%
- TPA to DFW — Dallas-Fort Worth75.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.8%
- American Airlines on-time record77.3%
- United Airlines on-time record81.4%
- 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.