Route reliability record
LAX→TPA
Los Angeles to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,191
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 2,158 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,191 LAX to TPA flights, of which United Airlines flew 389 at 88.9% on time.
Best time to fly LAX to TPA: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Saturday flights 84.8%, against 79.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,179 completed flights
Avg delay
52 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
88.9% on time across 389 flights
These figures cover 1,191 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 88.9% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 78.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 659 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 389 | 88.9% | 55 min | 0.26% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 659 | 78.6% | 57 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 143 | 59.9% | 40 min | 0.00% | D+ |
United leads Delta by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Los Angeles to Tampa
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. LAX → TPALos Angeles to Tampa | United Airlines | 88.7% | 88.9% | 0.26% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 2. LAX → TPALos Angeles to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 77.4% | 78.6% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Thu | DL 749 10:40 |
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 40 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am39 flights69.2%
- 8am–11am471 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm200 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm41 flights45.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am440 flights81.2%
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 45.0% for the afternoon window. That is 40 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 471 flights scheduled in it.
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, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.4%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 48% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 48%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,998 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,482 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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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.
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 83.5% on time across 1,192 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,191 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. 1,179 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 20.3% of the 1,191 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LAX to TPA?
United Airlines leads at 88.9% on time across 389 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 78.6%, a gap of 10 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 LAX to TPA?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 45.0%, 40 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 TPA88.9%
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to TPA78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to TPA59.9%
- LAX to SFO, a related route64.8%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.3%
- LAX to JFK, a related route79.1%
- United Airlines on-time record88.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record59.9%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.