Route reliability record
ATL→TPA
Atlanta to Tampa
- Flights
- 6,204
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 6,204 ATL to TPA flights, of which Southwest Airlines flew 731 at 75.1% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.4%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
Southwest Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 75.1% on time across 731 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,105 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.34%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.1% on time across 731 flights
These figures cover 6,204 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 75.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 937 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 84 | 79.5% | 84 min | 1.19% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 731 | 75.1% | 64 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,452 | 74.3% | 59 min | 1.33% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 937 | 64.8% | 84 min | 1.81% | D |
Southwest leads Frontier by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to TPA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
- Delta 122708:2590.8% · 365 flights
- Delta 158710:0079.8% · 365 flights
- Delta 109911:1083.7% · 363 flights
- Delta 75915:2568.5% · 363 flights
- Delta 145718:2065.9% · 360 flights
- Delta 159417:3061.8% · 358 flights
- Delta 172013:2570.5% · 357 flights
- Delta 152512:2578.7% · 351 flights
- Frontier 305422:5058.7% · 320 flights
- Frontier 378210:0370.5% · 300 flights
- Delta 260507:2592.2% · 262 flights
- Delta 156022:5971.5% · 255 flights
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Tampa
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → SRQAtlanta to Sarasota | Delta Air Lines | 79.5% | 80.8% | 1.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 3196 08:05 |
| 2. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 74.5% | 75.1% | 0.82% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 74.3% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2605 07:25 |
| 4. ATL → TPAAtlanta to Tampa | Frontier Airlines | 63.6% | 64.8% | 1.81% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3782 10:03 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
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–8am374 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am1,071 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm1,112 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm1,292 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,248 flights59.7%
- 8pm–5am1,107 flights64.2%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 92.1% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,292 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to TPA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 59.7%, a wide gap of 32.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am82.0%
- 11am–2pm82.7%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm59.7%
- 8pm–5am64.2%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 59.3% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 82.2%. 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 568 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.5%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 106,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 106,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 106,026 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 44,000 of the 106,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.34% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% 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.
At 406 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.6% on time across 6,200 flights, 7 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,204 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in TPA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 82.2% on time and July 59.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,105 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to TPA questions
How often is ATL to TPA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 6,204 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to TPA?
Southwest Airlines leads at 75.1% on time across 731 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 64.8%, 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 ATL to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.7%, 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 July delays on ATL to TPA?
July is the weakest month at 59.3% on time, compared with 82.2% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to TPA75.1%
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to TPA74.3%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to TPA64.8%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to TPA, a related route72.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.1%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record74.3%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ATL to TPA and TPA to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ATL to TPA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.