Route reliability record

TPA→DTW

Tampa to Detroit

Flights: 2,371
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 983 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,371 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,715 at 82.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

81.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,324 completed flights

Avg delay

71 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.86%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

82.4% on time across 1,715 flights

These figures cover 2,371 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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.

Carrier by carrier

Which airline is most reliable on TPA to DTW

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,715	82.4%	75 min	1.28%	B
Spirit Airlines	522	78.8%	60 min	4.02%	B−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	129	75.0%	74 min	0.78%	B+
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	5	40.0%	34 min	0.00%	F+

Spirit Airlines cancels 4.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.

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 20 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am553 flights91.3%
8am–11am446 flights86.9%
11am–2pm337 flights76.4%
2pm–5pm533 flights77.5%
5pm–8pm338 flights71.6%
8pm–5am164 flights72.5%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 71.6% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 553 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 23 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 70.6% on time, against 93.3% in September. 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 321 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.3%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 31,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
21%
Extreme weather
3%

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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 31,078 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 91.3% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

6.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

The 983 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 runs 79.0% on time across 2,370 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.

The sample behind these figures is 2,371 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 93.3% on time and December 70.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,324 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

TPA to DTW questions

How often is TPA to DTW delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.9% of the 2,371 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on TPA to DTW?

Delta Air Lines leads at 82.4% on time across 1,715 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 78.8%, a gap of 4 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to DTW?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.6%, 20 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 December delays on TPA to DTW?

December is the weakest month at 70.6% on time, compared with 93.3% in September. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. TPA to DTW and DTW to TPA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures