Carrier route record
AATPA→CLT
American Airlines · Tampa to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,886
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 95%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on TPA to CLT 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 2,886 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's TPA to CLT record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,838 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
83.7%
Every carrier on TPA to CLT, 3,037 flights
These figures cover 2,886 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on TPA to CLT
American flew 2,886 of the 3,037 flights on TPA to CLT, most of the route. Its 83.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 84.5% to American at 83.6%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 113 | 84.5% | 56 min | 2.65% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 38 | 84.2% | 78 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,886 | 83.6% | 80 min | 1.52% | B |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on TPA to CLT
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 American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am588 flights94.0%
- 8am–11am650 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm512 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm751 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm360 flights71.8%
- 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 94.0% of the time, against 71.8% for the evening window. That is 22 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 751 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on TPA to CLT through the year
August is the worst month at 74.3% on time, 20 points below October, the best at 94.5%. 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 269 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.5%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on TPA to CLT runs when it is late
American on TPA to CLT often beats the schedule: 1,066 of 2,838 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 465 late arrivals split 168 under half an hour, 130 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 167 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,066 flights37.6%
- Within 15 min1,307 flights46.1%
- 15–29 min late168 flights5.9%
- 30–59 min late130 flights4.6%
- 1–2 hours late88 flights3.1%
- 2+ hours late79 flights2.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,838 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
120 of 505 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. 80 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on TPA to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 25 July 2026, 25 hours 35 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 25 July 2026 | 25 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 September 2025 | 15 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 December 2025 | 13 hours 51 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 August 2026 | 13 hours 7 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 1 August 2026 | 10 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 37,000 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 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 37,137 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 94.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here 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 2,884 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 2,886 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on TPA to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 94.5% on time and August 74.3%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,838 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to TPA, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to CLT84.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.