Carrier route record
AALGA→TPA
American Airlines · New York to Tampa
- Flights
- 683
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 25%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LGA to TPA draws a C. About one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is a little over an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 683 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on LGA to TPA runs 11 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 114 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
65.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 662 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.5%
Every carrier on LGA to TPA, 2,763 flights
These figures cover 683 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on LGA to TPA
American flew 683 of the 2,763 flights on LGA to TPA, about 25% of it. Its 65.9% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 70.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 100.0% to American at 65.9%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 683 | 65.9% | 76 min | 2.49% | C |
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 American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 39 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am153 flights82.2%
- 8am–11am137 flights77.9%
- 11am–2pm58 flights68.4%
- 2pm–5pm95 flights43.6%
- 5pm–8pm240 flights56.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 35% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 82.2% of the time, against 43.6% for the afternoon window. That is 39 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 240 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LGA to TPA through the year
August is the worst month at 53.3% on time, 31 points below April, the best at 83.9%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. December was the busiest month here, with 72 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 73.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.0%, a spread of 12 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on LGA to TPA runs when it is late
The 226 late arrivals split 60 under half an hour, 74 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 92 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early132 flights19.9%
- Within 15 min304 flights45.9%
- 15–29 min late60 flights9.1%
- 30–59 min late74 flights11.2%
- 1–2 hours late52 flights7.9%
- 2+ hours late40 flights6.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 662 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 173 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 19 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 72 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 American on LGA to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 October 2025, 9 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 October 2025 | 9 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 July 2026 | 5 hours 54 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 18 August 2026 | 5 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 27 May 2026 | 5 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 17,167 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 82.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.49% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.59%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
13.9% 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 82.4% on time across 683 flights, 17 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 17 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 683 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 American on LGA to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 683 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 65.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 662 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to TPA, every carrier
- American on TPA to LGA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on LGA to TPA73.2%
- JetBlue Airways on LGA to TPA65.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.