Carrier route record
DLLGA→TPA
Delta Air Lines · New York to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,666
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on LGA to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,666 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, American Airlines, flew 690 at 67.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on LGA 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
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,608 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
71.0%
Every carrier on LGA to TPA, 2,840 flights
These figures cover 1,666 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on LGA to TPA
Delta flew 1,666 of the 2,840 flights on LGA to TPA, most of the route. Its 73.7% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 71.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 100.0% to JetBlue at 66.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 108 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,666 | 73.7% | 80 min | 3.18% | C− |
| American Airlines | 690 | 67.4% | 77 min | 3.04% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 477 | 66.8% | 81 min | 3.35% | C− |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.4% 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.
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am361 flights90.3%
- 8am–11am179 flights82.1%
- 11am–2pm406 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm386 flights61.9%
- 5pm–8pm322 flights61.2%
- 8pm–5am12 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.2% on time, against 90.3% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 406 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on LGA to TPA through the year
December is the weak month at 59.9% on time, against 86.2% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.0%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
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 34,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Carrier
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 42%, 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 14,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 33,964 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 90.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.18%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 72.8% on time across 1,666 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,666 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on LGA to TPA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.18% 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. 1,608 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to TPA, every carrier
- Delta on TPA to LGA, the return leg
- American Airlines on LGA to TPA67.4%
- JetBlue Airways on LGA to TPA66.8%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- What a cancellation rate actually tells you (and what it hides)
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.