Route reliability record
PHL→TPA
Philadelphia to Tampa
- Flights
- 2,660
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 920 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,660 PHL to TPA flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,713 at 73.7% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.0%, against 72.6% 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 47 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,590 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
73.7% on time across 1,713 flights
These figures cover 2,660 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.5% 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 PHL to TPA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points 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 | 148 | 75.7% | 55 min | 1.35% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,713 | 73.7% | 80 min | 2.39% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 799 | 69.6% | 90 min | 2.13% | C |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 73.7%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Tampa
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → TPAPhiladelphia to Tampa | American Airlines | 71.9% | 73.7% | 2.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHL → TPAPhiladelphia to Tampa | Frontier Airlines | 68.1% | 69.6% | 2.13% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 23 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am393 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am614 flights78.2%
- 11am–2pm468 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm462 flights64.3%
- 5pm–8pm574 flights62.1%
- 8pm–5am149 flights74.8%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 62.1% on time, against 85.4% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 614 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHL 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 PHL to TPA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 62.1%, a wide gap of 23.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.4%
- 8–11am78.2%
- 11am–2pm74.6%
- 2–5pm64.3%
- 5–8pm62.1%
- 8pm–5am74.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
August is the worst month at 60.5% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 83.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 317 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.3%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 58,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 58,188 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 85.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.26% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.38%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.5% 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 920 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 74.3% on time across 2,659 flights, within 2 points 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 2,660 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 83.0% on time and August 60.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,590 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to TPA questions
How often is PHL 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 27.4% of the 2,660 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to TPA?
American Airlines leads at 73.7% on time across 1,713 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 69.6%, a gap of 4 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 PHL to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 62.1%, 23 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 August delays on PHL to TPA?
August is the weakest month at 60.5% on time, compared with 83.0% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to TPA75.7%
- American Airlines on PHL to TPA73.7%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to TPA69.6%
- PHL to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.0%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.7%
- American Airlines on-time record73.7%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record69.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHL to TPA and TPA to PHL 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.