Route reliability record
FLL→TPA
Fort Lauderdale to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,412
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 197 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,412 FLL to TPA flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly FLL to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.6%, against 72.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,379 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.20%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
68.8% on time across 692 flights
These figures cover 1,412 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to TPA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 364 | 86.8% | 53 min | 0.27% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 692 | 68.8% | 69 min | 2.89% | C |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 356 | 63.6% | 95 min | 2.81% | D |
Flight by flight
Flights on FLL to TPA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Tampa
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MIA → TPAMiami to Tampa | Envoy Air | 78.0% | 80.9% | 3.56% | 2pm–5pm, Tue | — |
| 2. MIA → TPAMiami to Tampa | American Airlines | 69.6% | 70.1% | 0.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1921 20:53 |
| 3. FLL → TPAFort Lauderdale to Tampa | Spirit Airlines | 66.8% | 68.8% | 2.89% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am275 flights92.5%
- 8am–11am233 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm159 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm219 flights60.0%
- 5pm–8pm154 flights62.8%
- 8pm–5am372 flights59.0%
Scale runs 50% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.0% on time, against 92.5% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 372 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter FLL to TPA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On FLL to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.0%, a wide gap of 33.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.5%
- 8–11am85.3%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm60.0%
- 5–8pm62.8%
- 8pm–5am59.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 28 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 84.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 166 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.9%, a spread of 22 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 29,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 28,951 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
13.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 197 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 72.3% on time across 1,410 flights, within half a point 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 1,412 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in TPA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 84.6% on time and March 56.8%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,379 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to TPA questions
How often is FLL to TPA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.8% of the 1,412 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is FLL to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
72.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.0%, 34 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 March delays on FLL to TPA?
March is the weakest month at 56.8% on time, compared with 84.6% in May. Across the year that is 28 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 FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on FLL to TPA86.8%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to TPA68.8%
- JetBlue Airways on FLL to TPA63.6%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.0%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- FLL to LGA, a related route64.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record86.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record68.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record63.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. FLL to TPA and TPA to FLL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.