Carrier route record
WNRDU→TPA
Southwest Airlines · Raleigh to Tampa
- Flights
- 382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on RDU to TPA lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 45 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 382 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 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
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 376 completed flights
Avg delay
46 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.57%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.7%
Every carrier on RDU to TPA, 1,280 flights
These figures cover 382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Southwest against every carrier on RDU to TPA
Southwest flew 382 of the 1,280 flights on RDU to TPA, about 30% of it. Its 77.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.3% to Frontier at 75.6%. 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 | 649 | 84.3% | 79 min | 1.85% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 382 | 77.9% | 46 min | 1.57% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 249 | 75.6% | 87 min | 2.81% | B |
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 54 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–8am65 flights100.0%
- 8am–11am55 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm142 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm64 flights57.8%
- 5pm–8pm55 flights46.3%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 46.3% 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 142 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on RDU to TPA through the year
July is the worst month at 51.6% on time, 39 points below January, the best at 90.3%. 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 42 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.2% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.4%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 3,792 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
53% 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 3,792 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 3,792 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 1.81%, 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 8.1% 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. 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 77.8% on time across 382 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 382 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. 382 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 77.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 376 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 TPA84.3%
- Frontier Airlines on RDU to TPA75.6%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
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.