Carrier route record

WNDCA→TPA

Southwest Airlines · Washington to Tampa

Flights: 701
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 31%
Carriers: 3

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

Southwest on DCA to TPA lands a B, about a point 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 701 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on DCA to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

78.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 686 completed flights

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.85%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

74.5%

Every carrier on DCA to TPA, 2,248 flights

These figures cover 701 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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

Southwest against every carrier on DCA to TPA

Southwest flew 701 of the 2,248 flights on DCA to TPA, about 31% of it. Its 78.7% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 92.3% to American at 72.2%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	26	92.3%	27 min	0.00%	A+
Southwest Airlines (this page)	701	78.7%	66 min	1.85%	B
American Airlines	1,521	72.2%	82 min	2.70%	C

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 44 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–8am259 flights94.1%
8am–11am77 flights86.8%
11am–2pm170 flights78.0%
2pm–5pm116 flights52.6%
5pm–8pm58 flights50.0%
8pm–5am21 flights—

Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 50.0% on time, against 94.1% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 259 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on DCA to TPA through the year

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

June is the worst month at 65.5% on time, 33 points below April, the best at 98.2%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 69 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 9,604 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
47%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
13%
Extreme weather
4%

47% 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 9,604 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 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 9,604 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 3,487 of the 9,604 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.29%.

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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 814 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 runs 75.9% on time across 701 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 701 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 Southwest on DCA to TPA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 701 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 78.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 686 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