Route reliability record
LGA→TPA
New York to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,763
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,010 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,763 LGA to TPA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,724 at 73.2% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.5%, against 70.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 68 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,661 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
73.2% on time across 1,724 flights
These figures cover 2,763 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% 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 LGA to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 73.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 65.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 683 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,724 | 73.2% | 77 min | 3.54% | C− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 353 | 65.9% | 66 min | 3.40% | C− |
| American Airlines | 683 | 65.9% | 76 min | 2.49% | C |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.5% 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 LGA 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. 4 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 38 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am509 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am568 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm465 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm596 flights59.6%
- 5pm–8pm581 flights59.0%
- 8pm–5am44 flights48.8%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.8% on time, against 86.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 596 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 48.8%, a wide gap of 37.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am77.7%
- 11am–2pm74.0%
- 2–5pm59.6%
- 5–8pm59.0%
- 8pm–5am48.8%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
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 57.4% on time, against 85.6% in April. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 281 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%, a spread of 19 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 59,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 19 to one. The split is drawn from 59,185 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 86.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.26%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
12.0% 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 1,010 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.3% on time across 2,764 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 2,763 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 3.26% 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. 2,661 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to TPA questions
How often is LGA to TPA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.5% of the 2,763 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 LGA to TPA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 73.2% on time across 1,724 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 65.9%, 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 LGA to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 48.8%, 38 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 LGA to TPA?
December is the weakest month at 57.4% on time, compared with 85.6% in April. 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to TPA73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on LGA to TPA65.9%
- American Airlines on LGA to TPA65.9%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record65.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to TPA and TPA to LGA 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.