Carrier route record

WNTPA→DCA

Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Washington

Flights: 699
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 31%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on TPA to DCA sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 50 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 699 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on TPA to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 675 completed flights

Avg delay

51 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.72%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

74.7%

Every carrier on TPA to DCA, 2,249 flights

These figures cover 699 flights between September 2025 and August 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.

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Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on TPA to DCA

Southwest flew 699 of the 2,249 flights on TPA to DCA, about 31% of it. Its 75.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two 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.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airwaysthin sample	26	88.5%	35 min	0.00%	A+
Southwest Airlines (this page)	699	75.1%	51 min	1.72%	B
American Airlines	1,524	74.3%	87 min	2.89%	C

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Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am—
8am–11am345 flights85.3%
11am–2pm146 flights73.9%
2pm–5pm177 flights57.3%
5pm–8pm31 flights63.3%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 50% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.3% of the time, against 57.3% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 345 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on TPA to DCA through the year

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

July is the worst month at 56.9% on time, 31 points below January, the best at 87.5%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 69 flights.

Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.9%, a spread of 18 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on TPA to DCA runs when it is late

The 168 late arrivals split 63 under half an hour, 68 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.

15+ min early120 flights17.8%
Within 15 min387 flights57.3%
15–29 min late63 flights9.3%
30–59 min late68 flights10.1%
1–2 hours late20 flights3.0%
2+ hours late17 flights2.5%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 675 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

43 of 176 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 35 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on TPA to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 18 June 2026, 5 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of Southwest on TPA to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
18 June 2026	5 hours 34 minutes	Carrier
16 August 2026	4 hours 33 minutes	None reported
9 July 2026	3 hours 56 minutes	National Airspace System
12 March 2026	3 hours 28 minutes	Carrier
5 July 2026	3 hours 12 minutes	Carrier

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 8,319 reported delay minutes.

National Airspace System
35%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
Carrier
29%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

35% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 8,319 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 to one. The split is drawn from 8,319 reported delay minutes.

35% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 2,900 minutes out of 8,319, against a national NAS share of 21%.

Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.72%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.5% 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 roughly 50 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.

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 78.8% on time across 698 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 699 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 Southwest on TPA to DCA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 699 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 75.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 675 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures