Route reliability record
JFK→TPA
New York to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,310
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,005 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.2% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,310 JFK to TPA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,094 at 79.7% on time.
Best time to fly JFK to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.1%, against 76.1% 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,203 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.16%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.7% on time across 1,094 flights
These figures cover 2,310 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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 JFK to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 79.7% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 73.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,119 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,094 | 79.7% | 69 min | 2.74% | B |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,119 | 73.1% | 79 min | 5.81% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 97 | 69.8% | 103 min | 1.03% | C |
JetBlue Airways cancels 5.8% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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 New York 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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → TPANewark to Tampa | United Airlines | 79.2% | 81.0% | 2.19% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1979 07:00 |
| 2. JFK → TPANew York to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 77.5% | 79.7% | 2.74% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2042 07:05 |
| 3. EWR → SRQNewark to Sarasota | United Airlines | 75.4% | 76.8% | 1.77% | 5am–8am, Mon | — |
| 4. LGA → TPANew York to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 70.6% | 73.2% | 3.54% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2195 10:50 |
| 5. JFK → TPANew York to Tampa | JetBlue Airways | 68.9% | 73.1% | 5.81% | 5am–8am, Tue | B6 225 20:29 |
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 22 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am708 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am53 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm228 flights68.1%
- 2pm–5pm644 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm245 flights67.8%
- 8pm–5am432 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 67.8% for the evening window. That is 22 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 708 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.8%, a wide gap of 21.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am78.0%
- 11am–2pm68.1%
- 2–5pm70.9%
- 5–8pm67.8%
- 8pm–5am70.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
August is the worst month at 65.3% on time, 23 points below May, the best at 88.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.8%, a spread of 21 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 40,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 4%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 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 40,125 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.4% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.16%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.3% 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.
The 1,005 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 78.6% on time across 2,307 flights, within 3 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 2,310 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 delay figures matter less here than the 4.16% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,203 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to TPA questions
How often is JFK 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 23.9% of the 2,310 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on JFK to TPA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 79.7% on time across 1,094 flights. JetBlue Airways is at the other end on 73.1%, a gap of 7 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 JFK to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.8%, 22 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 August delays on JFK to TPA?
August is the weakest month at 65.3% on time, compared with 88.1% in May. Across the year that is 23 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on JFK to TPA79.7%
- JetBlue Airways on JFK to TPA73.1%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record73.1%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to TPA and TPA to JFK 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.