Route reliability record
DTW→TPA
Detroit to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,370
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 983 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 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 2,370 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,716 at 80.9% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,321 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
80.9% on time across 1,716 flights
These figures cover 2,370 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 80.9% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 74.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 521 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,716 | 80.9% | 61 min | 1.34% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 521 | 74.7% | 63 min | 3.84% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 128 | 70.9% | 60 min | 0.78% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 40.0% | 23 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Spirit Airlines cancels 3.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 16 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am571 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am474 flights80.0%
- 11am–2pm249 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm385 flights80.2%
- 5pm–8pm255 flights80.3%
- 8pm–5am436 flights68.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.7% of the time, against 68.5% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 571 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 61.8% on time, against 95.9% in September. 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 320 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% of the 30,000 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.
- 43%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, 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 13,000 of the 30,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 29,873 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 983 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 81.1% on time across 2,371 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 2,370 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 95.9% on time and December 61.8%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,321 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to TPA questions
How often is DTW to TPA delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 2,370 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to TPA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 80.9% on time across 1,716 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 74.7%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.5%, 16 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 DTW to TPA?
December is the weakest month at 61.8% on time, compared with 95.9% in September. Across the year that is 34 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DTW to TPA and TPA to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.