Carrier route record
UALAX→TPA
United Airlines · Los Angeles to Tampa
- Flights
- 327
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 28%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on LAX to TPA earns an A+. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 11 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 50 minutes. That rests on 327 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's LAX to TPA record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 114 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 326 completed flights
Avg delay
50 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.31%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.8%
Every carrier on LAX to TPA, 1,164 flights
These figures cover 327 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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
United against every carrier on LAX to TPA
United flew 327 of the 1,164 flights on LAX to TPA, about 28% of it. Its 88.7% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 88.7% to Southwest at 61.4%. One 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 Airlines (this page)thin 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+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When United 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 327 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am174 flights90.8%
- 11am–2pm56 flights85.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am97 flights86.6%
Scale runs 75% to 95%. 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 85.7% on time against 90.8% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 174 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on LAX to TPA through the year
April is the best month on the calendar at 97.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. November was the busiest month here, with 53 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 100.0% on time and Thursday the weakest at 76.5%, a spread of 24 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on LAX to TPA runs when it is late
United on LAX to TPA often beats the schedule: 102 of 326 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 37 late arrivals split 16 under half an hour, 9 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 12 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early102 flights31.3%
- Within 15 min187 flights57.4%
- 15–29 min late16 flights4.9%
- 30–59 min late9 flights2.8%
- 1–2 hours late10 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late2 flights0.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 326 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
8 of 35 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 23% of them. 10 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on LAX to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 November 2025, 2 hours 59 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The five worst days are spread across November, December and January, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 November 2025 | 2 hours 59 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 November 2025 | 2 hours 11 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 December 2025 | 1 hour 55 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 December 2025 | 1 hour 49 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 14 January 2026 | 1 hour 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 1,858 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%National Airspace System
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 840 of the 1,858 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 1,858 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 90.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.31%, 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.7% 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 runs 89.9% on time across 328 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 327 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 United on LAX to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 327 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 88.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 326 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LAX to TPA, every carrier
- United on TPA to LAX, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LAX to TPA78.6%
- Southwest Airlines on LAX to TPA61.4%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.