Carrier route record

DLCVG→TPA

Delta Air Lines · Cincinnati to Tampa

Flights: 359
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 49%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on CVG to TPA lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 359 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

81.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 353 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.11%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.4%

Every carrier on CVG to TPA, 726 flights

These figures cover 359 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.

Carrier by carrier

Delta against every carrier on CVG to TPA

Delta flew 359 of the 726 flights on CVG to TPA, about 49% of it. Its 81.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 81.4% to Delta at 81.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on CVG to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Frontier Airlines	367	81.4%	90 min	0.27%	B+
Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample	359	81.3%	73 min	1.11%	B

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on CVG to TPA

DL 167914:2781.9% · 343 flights

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–2pm61 flights88.3%
2pm–5pm298 flights79.9%
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 88.3% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 79.9%. 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 298 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on CVG to TPA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 60.0% on time, 33 points below April, the best at 93.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.5%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 4,846 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
46%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
7%

46% 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 4,846 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 4,846 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,864 of the 4,846 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.56%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.1% 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 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. 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 74.1% on time across 359 flights, 7 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 7 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 81.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 353 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures