Route reliability record
TPA→CLT
Tampa to Charlotte
- Flights
- 3,037
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 507 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,037 TPA to CLT flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.5%, against 83.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 64 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,986 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
83.6% on time across 2,886 flights
These figures cover 3,037 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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 CLT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 84.5% | 56 min | 2.65% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 38 | 84.2% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 2,886 | 83.6% | 80 min | 1.52% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA to CLT
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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa to Charlotte
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 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SRQ → CLTSarasota to Charlotte | American Airlines | 87.6% | 89.2% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1477 08:05 |
| 2. TPA → CLTTampa to Charlotte | American Airlines | 82.3% | 83.6% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2538 07:15 |
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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am650 flights93.1%
- 8am–11am683 flights89.9%
- 11am–2pm525 flights86.3%
- 2pm–5pm768 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm386 flights72.9%
- 8pm–5am25 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.1% of the time, against 72.9% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 768 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to CLT 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 CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 72.9%, a wide gap of 20.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.1%
- 8–11am89.9%
- 11am–2pm86.3%
- 2–5pm73.6%
- 5–8pm72.9%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
August is the worst month at 74.3% on time, 19 points below October, the best at 93.4%. 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 285 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 39,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 39,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 38,555 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 93.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% 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.
The 507 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 76.6% on time across 3,038 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 3,037 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 CLT 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. October runs 93.4% on time and August 74.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,986 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to CLT questions
How often is TPA to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.3% of the 3,037 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
83.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.9%, 20 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 August delays on TPA to CLT?
August is the weakest month at 74.3% on time, compared with 93.4% in October. Across the year that is 19 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
- CLT to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to CLT84.5%
- American Airlines on TPA to CLT83.6%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record84.5%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record84.2%
- American Airlines on-time record83.6%
- 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 CLT and CLT 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.