Carrier route record
AAPHL→TPA
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,675
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 64%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,675 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHL 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,634 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.97%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.2%
Every carrier on PHL to TPA, 2,616 flights
These figures cover 1,675 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% 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 PHL to TPA
American flew 1,675 of the 2,616 flights on PHL to TPA, most of the route. Its 74.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Southwest at 76.5% to Frontier at 69.8%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 76.5% | 55 min | 1.27% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,675 | 74.5% | 79 min | 1.97% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 784 | 69.8% | 93 min | 2.04% | C |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on PHL 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 27 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–8am285 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am454 flights80.2%
- 11am–2pm264 flights74.8%
- 2pm–5pm266 flights60.6%
- 5pm–8pm361 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am45 flights79.5%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 60.6% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 454 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to TPA through the year
December is the weak month at 62.4% on time, against 82.2% in May. 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 186 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.2%. 17 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 52% of the 33,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 32,662 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 87.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.48%.
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. 10.8% 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 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. 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 74.6% on time across 1,674 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 1,675 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 PHL to TPA
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 82.2% on time and December 62.4%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,634 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to TPA, every carrier
- American on TPA to PHL, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PHL to TPA76.5%
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to TPA69.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.