Carrier route record
WNRDU→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Raleigh to Tampa
- Flights
- 383
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on RDU to TPA lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 45 minutes on average. That rests on 383 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on RDU 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
80.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 377 completed flights
Avg delay
47 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on RDU to TPA, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 383 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on RDU to TPA
Southwest flew 383 of the 1,294 flights on RDU to TPA, about 30% of it. Its 80.6% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.7% to Frontier at 78.5%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 651 | 84.7% | 72 min | 1.84% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 383 | 80.6% | 47 min | 1.57% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 78.5% | 80 min | 3.46% | B− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 44 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am65 flights100.0%
- 8am–11am65 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm153 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm64 flights57.8%
- 5pm–8pm35 flights55.9%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 100.0% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 153 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on RDU to TPA through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 66.7%. January is the strongest month at 90.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 24 points. December was the busiest month here, with 42 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 95.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.9%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on RDU to TPA runs when it is late
Southwest on RDU to TPA often beats the schedule: 111 of 377 completed flights, 29%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 73 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 21 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 17 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early111 flights29.4%
- Within 15 min193 flights51.2%
- 15–29 min late35 flights9.3%
- 30–59 min late21 flights5.6%
- 1–2 hours late12 flights3.2%
- 2+ hours late5 flights1.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 377 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
17 of 83 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. Only 7 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on RDU to TPA
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 March 2026, 3 hours 27 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across March, July, December, October and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 27 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 20 July 2026 | 2 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 December 2025 | 2 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 October 2025 | 2 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 6 August 2026 | 2 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 3,398 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 3,398 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 3,398 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 100.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.57% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.1% on time across 383 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 383 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 RDU to TPA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 383 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 80.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 377 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- RDU to TPA, every carrier
- Southwest on TPA to RDU, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on RDU to TPA84.7%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to TPA78.5%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.