Carrier route record

DLSEA→TPA

Delta Air Lines · Seattle to Tampa

Flights: 363
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 37%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on SEA to TPA lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 363 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on SEA to TPA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 358 completed flights

Avg delay

55 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.55%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.6%

Every carrier on SEA to TPA, 976 flights

These figures cover 363 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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

Delta against every carrier on SEA to TPA

Delta flew 363 of the 976 flights on SEA to TPA, about 37% of it. Its 76.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Alaska at 79.9% to Delta at 76.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on SEA to TPA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Alaska Airlines	613	79.9%	43 min	0.65%	B+
Delta Air Lines (this page)thin sample	363	76.3%	55 min	0.55%	B+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on SEA to TPA

DL 35811:5576.3% · 363 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 363 flights.

There are not enough flights in each departure window to split Delta's SEA to TPA record by time of day without the percentages moving on noise. The headline rate of 76.3% is the reliable figure here.

Across the year

Delta on SEA to TPA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 48.4% on time, 42 points below April, the best at 90.0%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.6%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 4,673 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.

Carrier
45%
National Airspace System
27%
Late-arriving aircraft
15%
Extreme weather
14%

Extreme weather accounts for 14% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 4,673 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 2,090 of the 4,673 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.55%, 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 costs

6.4% 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 2,520 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 86.6% on time across 363 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 363 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 Delta on SEA to TPA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 363 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 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 358 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures