Carrier route record
AACLT→TPA
American Airlines · Charlotte to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,978
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,978 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT 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
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,926 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.58%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.1%
Every carrier on CLT to TPA, 3,205 flights
These figures cover 2,978 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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
American against every carrier on CLT to TPA
American flew 2,978 of the 3,205 flights on CLT to TPA, most of the route. Its 75.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.4% to Frontier at 70.1%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,978 | 75.4% | 61 min | 1.58% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 85 | 75.0% | 64 min | 1.18% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 70.1% | 92 min | 3.52% | C− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CLT to TPA
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 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–8am57 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am661 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm582 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm499 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm640 flights70.1%
- 8pm–5am539 flights60.7%
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.7% on time, against 93.0% 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 661 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to TPA through the year
July is the worst month at 56.5% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 83.3%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 274 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.8%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 44,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
48% 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 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 44,135 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 93.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.58% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.0% 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 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. 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 83.1% on time across 2,981 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,978 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 American on CLT to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 83.3% on time and July 56.5%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,926 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to TPA, every carrier
- American on TPA to CLT, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to TPA70.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.