Carrier route record
DLLAX→TPA
Delta Air Lines · Los Angeles to Tampa
- Flights
- 660
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LAX to TPA lands a B, about a point 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 roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 660 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on LAX to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 649 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on LAX to TPA, 1,164 flights
These figures cover 660 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
Delta against every carrier on LAX to TPA
Delta flew 660 of the 1,164 flights on LAX to TPA, most of the route. Its 78.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.7% to Southwest at 61.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 660 | 78.6% | 53 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 177 | 61.4% | 48 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on LAX to TPA
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 660 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am271 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm94 flights73.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am295 flights77.9%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 73.6% on time against 81.0% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 295 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LAX to TPA through the year
December is the weak month at 53.6% on time, against 94.4% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 58 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on LAX to TPA runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 73 of the 139 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 32 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early103 flights15.9%
- Within 15 min407 flights62.7%
- 15–29 min late73 flights11.2%
- 30–59 min late34 flights5.2%
- 1–2 hours late21 flights3.2%
- 2+ hours late11 flights1.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 649 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 96 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 56 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at TPA.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on LAX to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 June 2026, 9 hours 25 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 June 2026 | 9 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 December 2025 | 6 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 8 December 2025 | 4 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 December 2025 | 3 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 February 2026 | 3 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 7,312 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,549 of the 7,312 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 7,312 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.9% 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 83.5% on time across 660 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 660 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on LAX to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 660 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 78.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 649 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to TPA, every carrier
- Delta on TPA to LAX, the return leg
- United Airlines on LAX to TPA88.7%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to TPA61.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.