Carrier route record
WNDCA→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Washington to Tampa
- Flights
- 698
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 31%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DCA to TPA lands a B, 2 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 about an hour on average. That rests on 698 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 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.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 680 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.9%
Every carrier on DCA to TPA, 2,248 flights
These figures cover 698 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on DCA to TPA
Southwest flew 698 of the 2,248 flights on DCA to TPA, about 31% of it. Its 78.8% on time is 5 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.9%. 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 71.3%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 26 | 92.3% | 27 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 698 | 78.8% | 67 min | 2.44% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,524 | 71.3% | 84 min | 2.76% | C |
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
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 46 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am287 flights95.3%
- 8am–11am48 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm196 flights73.4%
- 2pm–5pm108 flights49.5%
- 5pm–8pm38 flights54.3%
- 8pm–5am21 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.3% of the time, against 49.5% for the afternoon window. That is 46 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 287 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DCA to TPA through the year
July is the worst month at 61.5% on time, 37 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 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DCA to TPA runs when it is late
Southwest on DCA to TPA often beats the schedule: 243 of 680 completed flights, 36%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 144 late arrivals split 43 under half an hour, 50 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 51 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early243 flights35.7%
- Within 15 min293 flights43.1%
- 15–29 min late43 flights6.3%
- 30–59 min late50 flights7.4%
- 1–2 hours late33 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late18 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 680 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
43 of 171 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DCA to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 15 December 2025, 9 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 15 December 2025 | 9 hours 34 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 7 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 June 2026 | 5 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 September 2025 | 4 hours 8 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 August 2026 | 4 hours 3 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 9,684 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,684 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 9,684 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,450 of the 9,684 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% 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 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.1% on time across 699 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 698 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. 698 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 78.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 680 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to TPA, every carrier
- Southwest on TPA to DCA, the return leg
- American Airlines on DCA to TPA71.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) 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.