Route reliability record
TPA→ATL
Tampa to Atlanta
- Flights
- 6,200
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 406 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 6,200 TPA to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 4,451 at 81.4% on time.
Best time to fly TPA to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.9%, against 79.6% for the route overall.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 81.4% on time across 4,451 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 6,105 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.4% on time across 4,451 flights
These figures cover 6,200 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 934 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 84 | 89.3% | 142 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,451 | 81.4% | 80 min | 1.39% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 731 | 76.2% | 63 min | 1.50% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 934 | 72.3% | 60 min | 1.71% | C |
Delta leads Frontier by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA to ATL
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.
- Delta 122711:0186.6% · 365 flights
- Delta 158712:3977.0% · 365 flights
- Delta 109913:4581.2% · 364 flights
- Delta 75917:5568.1% · 363 flights
- Delta 74408:4589.1% · 363 flights
- Delta 152515:0572.2% · 289 flights
- Frontier 305316:4664.4% · 273 flights
- Delta 260509:5890.7% · 271 flights
- Delta 159419:5970.2% · 260 flights
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa to Atlanta
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SRQ → ATLSarasota to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 86.3% | 87.8% | 1.70% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1499 06:00 |
| 2. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 80.3% | 81.4% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2605 09:58 |
| 3. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Southwest Airlines | 75.1% | 76.2% | 1.50% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 4. TPA → ATLTampa to Atlanta | Frontier Airlines | 71.1% | 72.3% | 1.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 3053 16:46 |
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 25 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,221 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am1,129 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm1,125 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm1,170 flights73.2%
- 5pm–8pm1,122 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am433 flights64.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.7% on time, against 89.3% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,221 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to ATL by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On TPA to ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.7%, a wide gap of 24.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am88.9%
- 11am–2pm81.6%
- 2–5pm73.2%
- 5–8pm69.9%
- 8pm–5am64.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 66.4% on time, 23 points below September, the best at 89.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 568 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.3%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 92,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 27%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 92,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 91,929 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 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.44% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
At 406 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.0% on time across 6,204 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 6,200 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 ATL 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 89.1% on time and July 66.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 6,105 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to ATL questions
How often is TPA to ATL 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 20.4% of the 6,200 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.4% on time across 4,451 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 72.3%, a gap of 9 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 TPA to ATL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.7%, 25 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 TPA to ATL?
July is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 89.1% in September. Across the year that is 23 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
- ATL to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to ATL81.4%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to ATL76.2%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to ATL72.3%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- TPA to DEN, a related route81.1%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record89.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to ATL and ATL to TPA 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.