Route reliability record
CLT→TPA
Charlotte to Tampa
- Flights
- 3,038
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 507 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,038 CLT to TPA flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 76.6% 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,985 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.6% on time across 2,884 flights
These figures cover 3,038 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 CLT to TPA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 40 | 82.5% | 64 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 2,884 | 76.6% | 63 min | 1.56% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 114 | 73.6% | 85 min | 3.51% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT 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 Charlotte 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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → TPACharlotte to Tampa | American Airlines | 75.4% | 76.6% | 1.56% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1550 18:14 |
| 2. CLT → SRQCharlotte to Sarasota | American Airlines | 74.6% | 76.1% | 1.92% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 2604 19:00 |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am91 flights93.4%
- 8am–11am670 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm618 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm477 flights74.5%
- 5pm–8pm632 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am550 flights63.9%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.9% on time, against 93.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 670 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT 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 CLT to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 63.9%, a wide gap of 29.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.4%
- 8–11am87.6%
- 11am–2pm80.7%
- 2–5pm74.5%
- 5–8pm71.2%
- 8pm–5am63.9%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 64.5% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 84.8%. 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 285 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.8%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 45,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 44,794 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 93.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.61% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 507 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.7% on time across 3,037 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 3,038 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 84.8% on time and August 64.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,985 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to TPA questions
How often is CLT 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 23.4% of the 3,038 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
76.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.9%, 30 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 August delays on CLT to TPA?
August is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 84.8% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLT to TPA76.6%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to TPA73.6%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.5%
- American Airlines on-time record76.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to TPA and TPA to CLT 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.