Carrier route record

DLAUS→TPA

Delta Air Lines · Austin to Tampa

Flights: 365
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 24%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on AUS to TPA lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 365 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's AUS to TPA record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 360 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

75.9%

Every carrier on AUS to TPA, 1,518 flights

These figures cover 365 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on AUS to TPA

Delta flew 365 of the 1,518 flights on AUS to TPA, about 24% of it. Its 83.9% on time is 8 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.9% to Southwest at 73.3%.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on AUS to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines (this page)	365	83.9%	63 min	1.10%	B
Southwest Airlines	1,153	73.3%	58 min	0.35%	C+

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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am188 flights78.4%
8am–11am177 flights89.7%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 78.4% for the early window. That is 11 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 188 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on AUS to TPA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.May best, July worst

May is the best month on the calendar at 96.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 76.9%. 12 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 81% of the 3,626 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.

Carrier
81%
National Airspace System
15%
Late-arriving aircraft
2%
Extreme weather
2%

The largest share of delay minutes, 81%, 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 2,947 of the 3,626 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 3,626 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.8% 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 an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 928 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.9% on time across 365 flights, 4 points below 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 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 365 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Delta on AUS to TPA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 365 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 83.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 360 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures