Route reliability record
PHX→TPA
Phoenix to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,222
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,788 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,222 PHX to TPA flights, of which American Airlines flew 733 at 76.3% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Thursday flights 75.0%, against 70.4% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 72 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,215 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.49%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
76.3% on time across 733 flights
These figures cover 1,222 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.7% 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
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 61.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 489 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 733 | 76.3% | 62 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 489 | 61.5% | 61 min | 0.20% | D+ |
The spread between American and Southwest is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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. PHX → TPAPhoenix to Tampa | American Airlines | 75.8% | 76.3% | 0.68% | 8pm–5am, Thu | — |
| 2. PHX → TPAPhoenix to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 61.4% | 61.5% | 0.20% | 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 35 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am39 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am437 flights76.8%
- 11am–2pm137 flights58.8%
- 2pm–5pm359 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm144 flights55.2%
- 8pm–5am106 flights87.7%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.2% on time, against 89.7% 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 437 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 83.3% 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 128 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 75.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.4%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 22,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
43% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 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 22,014 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 10,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.49%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,788 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.1% on time across 1,223 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,222 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 83.3% on time and March 53.2%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,215 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to TPA questions
How often is PHX to TPA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.6% of the 1,222 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to TPA?
American Airlines leads at 76.3% on time across 733 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 61.5%, a gap of 15 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 PHX to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 55.2%, 35 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 PHX to TPA?
March is the weakest month at 53.2% on time, compared with 83.3% in September. Across the year that is 30 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to TPA76.3%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to TPA61.5%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.3%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.8%
- American Airlines on-time record76.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record61.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. PHX to TPA and TPA to PHX are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHX to TPA’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.