Carrier route record
DLCVG→TPA
Delta Air Lines · Cincinnati to Tampa
- Flights
- 359
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 49%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on CVG to TPA lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About 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 359 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on CVG 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 354 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.5%
Every carrier on CVG to TPA, 731 flights
These figures cover 359 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on CVG to TPA
Delta flew 359 of the 731 flights on CVG to TPA, about 49% of it. Its 79.9% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 83.0% to Delta at 79.9%.
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 Lines (this page)thin sample | 359 | 79.9% | 72 min | 1.11% | B |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on CVG to TPA
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 359 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm40 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm319 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 79.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 319 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on CVG to TPA through the year
December is the weak month at 64.5% on time, against 93.3% in April. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 75.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on CVG to TPA runs when it is late
Delta on CVG to TPA often beats the schedule: 96 of 354 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 71 late arrivals split 19 under half an hour, 22 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 30 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early96 flights27.1%
- Within 15 min187 flights52.8%
- 15–29 min late19 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.2%
- 1–2 hours late18 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late12 flights3.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 354 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 74 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on CVG to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 September 2025, 5 hours 37 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 September 2025 | 5 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 March 2026 | 5 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 June 2026 | 4 hours 56 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 28 April 2026 | 3 hours 41 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 August 2026 | 2 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 5,102 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,102 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 5,102 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,785 of the 5,102 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.5% 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 71.5% on time across 359 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 359 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on CVG to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 359 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 79.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 354 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CVG to TPA, every carrier
- Delta on TPA to CVG, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CVG to TPA83.0%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) 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 7.05 million flight records
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.