Route reliability record
BOS→TPA
Boston to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,780
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,185 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,780 BOS to TPA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,169 at 76.3% on time.
Best time to fly BOS to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.3%, against 74.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,684 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
76.3% on time across 1,169 flights
These figures cover 2,780 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to TPA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 14 | 85.7% | 22 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,169 | 76.3% | 73 min | 2.05% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,588 | 73.1% | 68 min | 3.90% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 37.5% | 49 min | 11.11% | F− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on BOS 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Boston to Tampa
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → TPABoston to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 74.7% | 76.3% | 2.05% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1439 15:40 |
| 2. BOS → TPABoston to Tampa | JetBlue Airways | 70.2% | 73.1% | 3.90% | 5am–8am, Wed | B6 891 06:00 |
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 33 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am701 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am317 flights80.7%
- 11am–2pm365 flights79.8%
- 2pm–5pm626 flights68.7%
- 5pm–8pm413 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am358 flights55.8%
Scale runs 45% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.8% on time, against 89.2% 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 701 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BOS 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 BOS to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.2% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 55.8%, a wide gap of 33.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.2%
- 8–11am80.7%
- 11am–2pm79.8%
- 2–5pm68.7%
- 5–8pm64.6%
- 8pm–5am55.8%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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 66.5% on time, 15 points below April, the best at 81.5%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 303 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.5%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 to one. The split is drawn from 47,985 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 89.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.13%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% 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.
The 1,185 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.
The return leg runs 74.3% on time across 2,784 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,780 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.13% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,684 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BOS to TPA questions
How often is BOS 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 25.6% of the 2,780 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on BOS to TPA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 76.3% on time across 1,169 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.1%, a gap of 3 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 BOS to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.2% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 55.8%, 33 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 BOS to TPA?
July is the weakest month at 66.5% on time, compared with 81.5% in April. Across the year that is 15 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 BOS — the return legseparate record
- Boston Logan International (BOS) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on BOS to TPA76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on BOS to TPA73.1%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- BOS to ORD, a related route71.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record85.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.3%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. BOS to TPA and TPA to BOS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.