Carrier route record
AATPA→DCA
American Airlines · Tampa to Washington
- Flights
- 1,524
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 68%
- 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 DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,524 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on TPA to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,472 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.7%
Every carrier on TPA to DCA, 2,249 flights
These figures cover 1,524 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on TPA to DCA
American flew 1,524 of the 2,249 flights on TPA to DCA, most of the route. Its 74.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.5% to American at 74.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 26 | 88.5% | 35 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 699 | 75.1% | 51 min | 1.72% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,524 | 74.3% | 87 min | 2.89% | C |
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 33 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am232 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am146 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm599 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm42 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm505 flights59.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 92.9% 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 599 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on TPA to DCA through the year
December is the weak month at 70.2% on time, against 79.5% in June. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.0%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on TPA to DCA runs when it is late
American on TPA to DCA often beats the schedule: 449 of 1,472 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 378 late arrivals split 111 under half an hour, 114 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 153 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early449 flights30.5%
- Within 15 min645 flights43.8%
- 15–29 min late111 flights7.5%
- 30–59 min late114 flights7.7%
- 1–2 hours late86 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late67 flights4.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,472 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
63 of 387 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 54 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on TPA to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 22 June 2026, 18 hours 40 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across June, December, March, August and April, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 22 June 2026 | 18 hours 40 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 December 2025 | 13 hours 25 minutes | Carrier |
| 13 March 2026 | 13 hours 23 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 29 August 2026 | 11 hours 50 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 16 April 2026 | 8 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 32,867 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 92.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.89%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 814 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 71.3% on time across 1,524 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,524 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 DCA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.89% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,472 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to DCA, every carrier
- American on DCA to TPA, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to DCA75.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.