Route reliability record
TPA→IAD
Tampa to Washington
- Flights
- 1,288
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 811 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,288 TPA to IAD flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.0%, against 85.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 85 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,274 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.6% on time across 1,110 flights
These figures cover 1,288 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to IAD
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 | 178 | 86.7% | 74 min | 2.81% | A |
| United Airlines | 1,110 | 85.6% | 72 min | 0.72% | A+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA to IAD
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Tampa to Washington
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. TPA → IADTampa to Washington | United Airlines | 85.0% | 85.6% | 0.72% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 2331 09:00 |
| 2. SRQ → BWISarasota to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 82.4% | 83.8% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. TPA → BWITampa to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 80.0% | 81.3% | 1.64% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. TPA → DCATampa to Washington | Southwest Airlines | 73.8% | 75.1% | 1.72% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. TPA → DCATampa to Washington | American Airlines | 72.2% | 74.3% | 2.89% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am41 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am415 flights93.2%
- 11am–2pm229 flights89.7%
- 2pm–5pm226 flights79.5%
- 5pm–8pm374 flights78.5%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.1% of the time, against 78.5% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 415 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to IAD 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 IAD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 78.5%, a wide gap of 16.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.1%
- 8–11am93.2%
- 11am–2pm89.7%
- 2–5pm79.5%
- 5–8pm78.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
July is the worst month at 79.2% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 96.0%. 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 128 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.4%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
36% 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 4,700 minutes out of 13,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 13,093 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 95.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 811 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 runs 83.8% on time across 1,287 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 1,288 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 IAD after this flight
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 96.0% on time and July 79.2%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,274 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to IAD questions
How often is TPA to IAD delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.2% of the 1,288 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
85.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.5%, 17 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 IAD?
July is the weakest month at 79.2% on time, compared with 96.0% in April. 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
- IAD to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to IAD86.7%
- United Airlines on TPA to IAD85.6%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record86.7%
- United Airlines on-time record85.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to IAD and IAD 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.