Carrier route record
WNTPA→FLL
Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 364
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 26%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on TPA to FLL sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 364 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on TPA to FLL runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 91 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 356 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.20%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.1%
Every carrier on TPA to FLL, 1,418 flights
These figures cover 364 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
Southwest against every carrier on TPA to FLL
Southwest flew 364 of the 1,418 flights on TPA to FLL, about 26% of it. Its 68.5% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 73.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from JetBlue at 89.0% to Southwest at 68.5%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 231 | 89.0% | 90 min | 0.87% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 823 | 70.6% | 67 min | 3.28% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 364 | 68.5% | 59 min | 2.20% | C |
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 42 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–8am—
- 8am–11am37 flights94.6%
- 11am–2pm23 flights—
- 2pm–5pm185 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm106 flights52.5%
- 8pm–5am13 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.5% on time, against 94.6% for the 8am–11am 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 185 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on TPA to FLL through the year
September is the best month on the calendar at 90.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 31 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 78.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 56.0%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 6,608 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%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
55% 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 6,608 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 6,608 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.4% 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 last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 197 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 86.5% on time across 364 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 364 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 FLL
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 364 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 68.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 356 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to FLL, every carrier
- Southwest on FLL to TPA, the return leg
- JetBlue Airways on TPA to FLL89.0%
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to FLL70.6%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.