Carrier route record
DLATL→TPA
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Tampa
- Flights
- 4,413
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 72%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 4,413 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Southwest Airlines, flew 732 at 75.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,350 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.3%
Every carrier on ATL to TPA, 6,141 flights
These figures cover 4,413 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on ATL to TPA
Delta flew 4,413 of the 6,141 flights on ATL to TPA, most of the route. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 75.9% to Frontier at 64.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Southwest Airlines arrives on time 75.9% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 64.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 870 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 732 | 75.9% | 68 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 4,413 | 74.6% | 55 min | 1.18% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 126 | 69.6% | 82 min | 0.79% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 870 | 64.9% | 77 min | 1.84% | D |
Southwest leads Frontier by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to TPA
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am252 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am730 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm938 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm989 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm707 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am797 flights65.2%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 65.2% for the overnight window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 989 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to TPA through the year
July is the worst month at 54.4% on time, 27 points below April, the best at 81.7%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 416 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.8%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 61,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 30,000 of the 61,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 60,508 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.8% 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 last about 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 81.7% on time across 4,413 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 4,413 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on ATL to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 81.7% on time and July 54.4%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,350 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to TPA, every carrier
- Delta on TPA to ATL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to TPA75.9%
- Spirit Airlines on ATL to TPA69.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to TPA64.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- 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. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.