Route reliability record
TPA→DFW
Tampa to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,917
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 929 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,917 TPA to DFW flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to DFW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 81.7%, against 75.7% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,820 completed flights
Avg delay
89 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.98%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
75.3% on time across 2,608 flights
These figures cover 2,917 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to DFW
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 | 291 | 81.9% | 66 min | 2.75% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,608 | 75.3% | 92 min | 2.99% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 47.1% | 66 min | 5.56% | F− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa to Dallas-Fort Worth
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. TPA → DALTampa to Dallas | Southwest Airlines | 75.2% | 76.3% | 1.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. TPA → DFWTampa to Dallas-Fort Worth | American Airlines | 73.0% | 75.3% | 2.99% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 36 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am549 flights86.6%
- 8am–11am619 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm601 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm441 flights67.2%
- 5pm–8pm606 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am101 flights51.0%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 51.0% on time, against 86.6% 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 619 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 51.0%, a wide gap of 35.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.6%
- 8–11am85.6%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm67.2%
- 5–8pm60.5%
- 8pm–5am51.0%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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.
June is the worst month at 65.6% on time, 17 points below February, the best at 82.8%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 272 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.6%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 61,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 61,020 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 86.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.98%, 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 actually costs
10.0% 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 929 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 67.6% on time across 2,917 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,917 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 DFW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.98% 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. 2,820 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to DFW questions
How often is TPA to DFW delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.3% of the 2,917 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is TPA to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
75.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to DFW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 51.0%, 36 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 June delays on TPA to DFW?
June is the weakest month at 65.6% on time, compared with 82.8% in February. Across the year that is 17 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
- DFW to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to DFW81.9%
- American Airlines on TPA to DFW75.3%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record81.9%
- American Airlines on-time record75.3%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record47.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. TPA to DFW and DFW 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.