Route reliability record
RDU→TPA
Raleigh to Tampa
- Flights
- 1,280
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 587 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,280 RDU to TPA flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 649 at 84.3% on time.
Best time to fly RDU to TPA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.4%, against 80.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,255 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
84.3% on time across 649 flights
These figures cover 1,280 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to TPA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.3% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 77.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 382 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 649 | 84.3% | 79 min | 1.85% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 382 | 77.9% | 46 min | 1.57% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 249 | 75.6% | 87 min | 2.81% | B |
Delta leads Southwest by 6 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on RDU to TPA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Raleigh 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. RDU → TPARaleigh to Tampa | Delta Air Lines | 82.7% | 84.3% | 1.85% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1279 06:30 |
| 2. RDU → TPARaleigh to Tampa | Southwest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.9% | 1.57% | 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 29 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am429 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am80 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm170 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm116 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm403 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am82 flights79.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 62.9% for the afternoon window. That is 29 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 429 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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.
July is the worst month at 58.7% on time, 37 points below September, the best at 95.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 116 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.2%. 12 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 17,000 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
46% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 16,812 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 6,432 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 587 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 81.8% on time across 1,280 flights, within about 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 1,280 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 95.5% on time and July 58.7%, a swing of 37 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,255 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
RDU to TPA questions
How often is RDU to TPA delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.3% of the 1,280 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on RDU to TPA?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.3% on time across 649 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 77.9%, a gap of 6 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 RDU to TPA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 62.9%, 29 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 July delays on RDU to TPA?
July is the weakest month at 58.7% on time, compared with 95.5% in September. Across the year that is 37 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 RDU — the return legseparate record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to TPA84.3%
- Southwest Airlines on RDU to TPA77.9%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to TPA75.6%
- RDU to ATL, a related route87.6%
- ATL to TPA, a related route73.3%
- RDU to ORD, a related route74.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. RDU to TPA and TPA to RDU 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.