Carrier route record
WNAUS→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Austin to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,153
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 76%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on AUS 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,153 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on AUS to TPA runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,148 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.35%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.9%
Every carrier on AUS to TPA, 1,518 flights
These figures cover 1,153 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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
Southwest against every carrier on AUS to TPA
Southwest flew 1,153 of the 1,518 flights on AUS to TPA, most of the route. Its 73.3% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 75.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 83.9% | 63 min | 1.10% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 1,153 | 73.3% | 58 min | 0.35% | C+ |
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 38 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–8am173 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am206 flights89.3%
- 11am–2pm128 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm225 flights64.9%
- 5pm–8pm278 flights60.3%
- 8pm–5am143 flights55.6%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.6% on time, against 93.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 278 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on AUS to TPA through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 91.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 126 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 57.9%. 26 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 18,000 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.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
59% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 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 17,775 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 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.35%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.7% 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 1,153 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 1,153 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 Southwest on AUS to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 91.0% on time and March 64.2%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,148 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- AUS to TPA, every carrier
- Southwest on TPA to AUS, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on AUS to TPA83.9%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- 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. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.