Route reliability record
CVG→TPA
Cincinnati to Tampa
- Flights
- 731
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 773 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 731 CVG to TPA flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly CVG to TPA: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.5%, against 81.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 42 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 724 completed flights
Avg delay
77 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
83.0% on time across 372 flights
These figures cover 731 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CVG 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 372 | 83.0% | 83 min | 0.27% | B+ |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 359 | 79.9% | 72 min | 1.11% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on CVG 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am105 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am50 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm160 flights88.7%
- 2pm–5pm340 flights79.1%
- 5pm–8pm49 flights64.6%
- 8pm–5am27 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 88.7% for the 11am–2pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 340 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CVG 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 CVG to TPA, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 88.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 64.6%, a wide gap of 24.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am84.0%
- 11am–2pm88.7%
- 2–5pm79.1%
- 5–8pm64.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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.
December is the weak month at 66.7% on time, against 91.7% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 80 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 74.0%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 10,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 10,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 10,320 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.68%, below the national 1.89% 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 actually costs
7.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 773 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 75.1% on time across 733 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 731 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in TPA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 731 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 81.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 724 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CVG to TPA questions
How often is CVG to TPA delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.5% of the 731 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CVG to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
81.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CVG to TPA?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.6%, 24 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 December delays on CVG to TPA?
December is the weakest month at 66.7% on time, compared with 91.7% in June. Across the year that is 25 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 CVG — the return legseparate record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to TPA83.0%
- Delta Air Lines on CVG to TPA79.9%
- CVG to ORD, a related route70.8%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- CVG to ATL, a related route85.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record83.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.9%
- 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. CVG to TPA and TPA to CVG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CVG to TPA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.