Route reliability record
TPA→EWR
Tampa to Newark
- Flights
- 2,660
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 997 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 2,660 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
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.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,593 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.18%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
77.4% on time across 2,373 flights
These figures cover 2,660 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to EWR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 2,373 | 77.4% | 80 min | 1.98% | B |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 287 | 65.5% | 82 min | 3.83% | C− |
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 35 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–8am382 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am524 flights86.2%
- 11am–2pm376 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm625 flights68.9%
- 5pm–8pm619 flights59.7%
- 8pm–5am134 flights70.5%
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 94.4% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 625 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 40 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.
July is the worst month at 52.9% on time, 40 points below April, the best at 93.2%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 246 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%. 10 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. National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 50,000 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.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 16%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
55% 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 28,000 minutes out of 50,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 49,736 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.18% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.34%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.3% 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 997 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 80.8% on time across 2,656 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,660 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. April runs 93.2% on time and July 52.9%, a swing of 40 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,593 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to EWR questions
How often is TPA to EWR delayed?
About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.9% of the 2,660 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to EWR compared with the rest of the country?
76.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 EWR?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.7%, 35 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 July delays on TPA to EWR?
July is the weakest month at 52.9% on time, compared with 93.2% in April. Across the year that is 40 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
- EWR to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- United Airlines on-time record77.4%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record65.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. TPA to EWR and EWR 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.