Route reliability record
ORD→TPA
Chicago to Tampa
- Flights
- 3,174
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,012 mi
- Carriers
- 7
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,174 ORD to TPA flights, of which United Airlines flew 1,443 at 78.0% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.1%, against 72.8% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,120 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
78.0% on time across 1,443 flights
These figures cover 3,174 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 ORD to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,155 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,443 | 78.0% | 74 min | 0.62% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 71.2% | 91 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 138 | 70.5% | 184 min | 4.35% | C− |
| American Airlines | 1,155 | 67.8% | 72 min | 1.90% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 221 | 67.1% | 88 min | 3.62% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 16 min | 0.00% | F+ |
United leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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 Chicago 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. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → SRQChicago to Sarasota | United Airlines | 78.5% | 79.0% | 0.65% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → TPAChicago to Tampa | United Airlines | 77.5% | 78.0% | 0.62% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2326 07:30 |
| 3. MDW → TPAChicago to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 75.2% | 76.2% | 1.30% | 5am–8am, Tue (route) | — |
| 4. ORD → TPAChicago to Tampa | American Airlines | 66.5% | 67.8% | 1.90% | 8am–11am, Tue | AA 2920 09:05 |
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 40 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am478 flights86.0%
- 8am–11am531 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm706 flights76.6%
- 2pm–5pm746 flights67.3%
- 5pm–8pm656 flights64.1%
- 8pm–5am57 flights46.3%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 46.3% on time, against 86.0% 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 746 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.0% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 46.3%, a wide gap of 39.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.0%
- 8–11am77.1%
- 11am–2pm76.6%
- 2–5pm67.3%
- 5–8pm64.1%
- 8pm–5am46.3%
best all US flightsScale 40% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 82.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 341 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.6%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 68,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 68,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 68,353 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 86.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.0% 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 1,012 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 runs 72.9% on time across 3,171 flights, within half 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 3,174 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 82.0% on time and March 62.8%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 3,120 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to TPA questions
How often is ORD to TPA delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.2% of the 3,174 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 ORD to TPA?
United Airlines leads at 78.0% on time across 1,443 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 67.8%, a gap of 10 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 ORD to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 46.3%, 40 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 March delays on ORD to TPA?
March is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 82.0% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- United Airlines on ORD to TPA78.0%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to TPA71.2%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to TPA70.5%
- American Airlines on ORD to TPA67.8%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to TPA67.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- United Airlines on-time record78.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record71.2%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to TPA and TPA to ORD 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.