Route reliability record
LAX→TPA
Los Angeles to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,164
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,158 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 50 minutes on average. That rests on 1,164 LAX to TPA flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
Best time to fly LAX to TPA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 83.9%, against 78.8% 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
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,151 completed flights
Avg delay
51 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
78.6% on time across 660 flights
These figures cover 1,164 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 LAX 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 327 | 88.7% | 50 min | 0.31% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 660 | 78.6% | 53 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 177 | 61.4% | 48 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on LAX 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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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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am39 flights69.2%
- 8am–11am458 flights84.6%
- 11am–2pm200 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights55.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am392 flights80.1%
Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.6% of the time, against 55.4% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 458 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LAX 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 LAX to TPA, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 55.4%, a wide gap of 29.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am69.2%
- 8–11am84.6%
- 11am–2pm73.6%
- 2–5pm55.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am80.1%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 67.0% on time, against 95.2% 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. April was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 48% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Carrier
- 31%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,975 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,419 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.8% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 2,158 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.6% on time across 1,165 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,164 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. September runs 95.2% on time and December 67.0%, a swing of 28 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,151 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAX to TPA questions
How often is LAX to TPA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.2% of the 1,164 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 50 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAX to TPA compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAX to TPA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 55.4%, 29 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 LAX to TPA?
December is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 95.2% in September. 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 LAX — the return legseparate record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- United Airlines on LAX to TPA88.7%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to TPA78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to TPA61.4%
- LAX to SFO, a related route60.1%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- United Airlines on-time record88.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record61.4%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. LAX to TPA and TPA to LAX 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.