Route reliability record
IAD→TPA
Washington to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,287
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 811 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,287 IAD to TPA flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAD to TPA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.3%, against 83.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,276 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
83.6% on time across 1,109 flights
These figures cover 1,287 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on IAD 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 178 | 84.9% | 75 min | 2.81% | B |
| United Airlines | 1,109 | 83.6% | 69 min | 0.45% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAD 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 Washington 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → TPAWashington to Tampa | United Airlines | 83.2% | 83.6% | 0.45% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 683 09:00 |
| 2. BWI → SRQBaltimore to Sarasota | Southwest Airlines | 78.6% | 80.1% | 1.92% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. DCA → TPAWashington to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 78.8% | 2.44% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 4. BWI → TPABaltimore to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 76.9% | 78.3% | 1.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → TPAWashington to Tampa | American Airlines | 69.3% | 71.3% | 2.76% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am395 flights91.1%
- 11am–2pm425 flights85.5%
- 2pm–5pm44 flights87.5%
- 5pm–8pm365 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am58 flights87.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.1% of the time, against 72.7% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 425 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAD 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 IAD to TPA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.7%, a wide gap of 18.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am91.1%
- 11am–2pm85.5%
- 2–5pm87.5%
- 5–8pm72.7%
- 8pm–5am87.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
July is the worst month at 77.1% on time, 16 points below April, the best at 92.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 128 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 12 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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
39% 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 4 to one. The split is drawn from 14,441 reported delay minutes.
34% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 4,855 minutes out of 14,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations are rare at 0.78%, 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
6.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 811 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 runs 85.8% on time across 1,288 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 1,287 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. April runs 92.9% on time and July 77.1%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,276 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to TPA questions
How often is IAD to TPA delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.2% of the 1,287 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is IAD to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
83.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAD to TPA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.7%, 18 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 July delays on IAD to TPA?
July is the weakest month at 77.1% on time, compared with 92.9% in April. Across the year that is 16 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 IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on IAD to TPA84.9%
- United Airlines on IAD to TPA83.6%
- IAD to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- IAD to DEN, a related route83.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.9%
- United Airlines on-time record83.6%
- 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. IAD to TPA and TPA to IAD 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.