Carrier route record
AAORD→TPA
American Airlines · Chicago to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,141
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 35%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to TPA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 10 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,141 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on ORD to TPA runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 96 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,114 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.0%
Every carrier on ORD to TPA, 3,217 flights
These figures cover 1,141 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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
American against every carrier on ORD to TPA
American flew 1,141 of the 3,217 flights on ORD to TPA, about 35% of it. Its 68.0% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Envoy at 50.0%. Five 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,403 | 78.4% | 71 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 283 | 71.3% | 97 min | 2.83% | C |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 71.2% | 91 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,141 | 68.0% | 70 min | 1.93% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 66.7% | 153 min | 4.62% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 16 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on ORD to TPA
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 14 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–8am116 flights74.3%
- 8am–11am249 flights76.5%
- 11am–2pm177 flights70.3%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm337 flights62.3%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.3% on time, against 76.5% for the 8am–11am 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 337 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to TPA through the year
November is the best month on the calendar at 80.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 130 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.9%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 24,865 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 76.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.44%.
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. 12.2% 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 1,012 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. 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.2% on time across 1,140 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,141 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 American on ORD to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 80.6% on time and March 54.5%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,114 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to TPA, every carrier
- American on TPA to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to TPA78.4%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to TPA71.3%
- Southwest Airlines on ORD to TPA71.2%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to TPA66.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.