Carrier route record
WNORD→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Chicago to Tampa
- Flights
- 214
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 214 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,403 at 78.4% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on ORD to TPA runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 64 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 212 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.0%
Every carrier on ORD to TPA, 3,217 flights
These figures cover 214 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% 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
Southwest against every carrier on ORD to TPA
Southwest flew 214 of the 3,217 flights on ORD to TPA, about 7% of it. Its 71.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Envoy at 50.0%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 78.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 68.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,141 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 | 1,403 | 78.4% | 71 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 283 | 71.3% | 97 min | 2.83% | C |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 214 | 71.2% | 91 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| American Airlines | 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+ |
United leads American by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 27 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm131 flights81.5%
- 2pm–5pm83 flights54.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 81.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 54.9%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 131 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on ORD to TPA through the year
- Oct–Dec 202560 flights81.4%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights76.4%
- Apr–Jun 202664 flights54.7%
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 71.2% on time across 214 flights.
Southwest on ORD to TPA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 81.4% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 54.7%, a swing of 27 points on roughly 71 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 60.0%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 5,529 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
44% 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 5,529 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 5,529 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
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. 11.3% 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 68.1% on time across 214 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 214 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 Southwest on ORD to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 214 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 71.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 212 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to TPA, every carrier
- Southwest on TPA to ORD, the return leg
- United Airlines on ORD to TPA78.4%
- Spirit Airlines on ORD to TPA71.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to TPA68.0%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to TPA66.7%
- Southwest 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
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.