Route reliability record
HOU→TPA
Houston to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,010
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 781 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 1,010 HOU to TPA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly HOU to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.9%, against 73.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
73.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,004 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.40%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
73.4% on time across 1,010 flights
These figures cover 1,010 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on HOU 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 Airlines | 1,010 | 73.4% | 51 min | 0.40% | C+ |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Houston 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAH → TPAHouston to Tampa | United Airlines | 83.2% | 83.5% | 0.30% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | UA 1312 18:10 |
| 2. HOU → TPAHouston to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 73.1% | 73.4% | 0.40% | 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 46 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am177 flights94.9%
- 8am–11am103 flights80.4%
- 11am–2pm171 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm184 flights48.6%
- 5pm–8pm239 flights71.1%
- 8pm–5am136 flights60.7%
Scale runs 40% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.9% of the time, against 48.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 239 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter HOU 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 HOU to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.9% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 48.6%, a wide gap of 46.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.9%
- 8–11am80.4%
- 11am–2pm86.5%
- 2–5pm48.6%
- 5–8pm71.1%
- 8pm–5am60.7%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.9% 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 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.9% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.7%, a spread of 6 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 42% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 42%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 13,711 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,816 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.40%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.0% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 781 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 79.0% on time across 1,032 flights, 6 points above 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,010 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in TPA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,010 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 73.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,004 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
HOU to TPA questions
How often is HOU to TPA delayed?
About 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 26.6% of the 1,010 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is HOU to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
73.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on HOU to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.9% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 48.6%, 46 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 HOU to TPA?
March is the weakest month at 52.7% on time, compared with 90.9% in September. Across the year that is 38 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 HOU — the return legseparate record
- William P. Hobby (HOU) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- HOU to DAL, a related route81.6%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- HOU to ATL, a related route79.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record73.4%
- 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. HOU to TPA and TPA to HOU 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.