Carrier route record
AATPA→DFW
American Airlines · Tampa to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 2,579
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 89%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on TPA to DFW carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,579 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on TPA to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,474 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.2%
Every carrier on TPA to DFW, 2,907 flights
These figures cover 2,579 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on TPA to DFW
American flew 2,579 of the 2,907 flights on TPA to DFW, most of the route. Its 74.9% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 79.7% to Envoy at 61.8%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 60 | 79.7% | 68 min | 1.67% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 234 | 79.6% | 72 min | 2.56% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,579 | 74.9% | 92 min | 3.61% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 34 | 61.8% | 100 min | 0.00% | D+ |
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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am529 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am503 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm610 flights76.9%
- 2pm–5pm314 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm572 flights55.5%
- 8pm–5am51 flights60.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 55.5% on time, against 88.5% 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 610 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on TPA to DFW through the year
July is the worst month at 62.6% on time, 21 points below December, the best at 83.3%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 244 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 57,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 57,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 57,060 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 88.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 65.6% on time across 2,579 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,579 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 DFW
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.61% 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. 2,474 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to TPA, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to DFW79.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.