Carrier route record
UATPA→IAD
United Airlines · Tampa to Washington
- Flights
- 1,110
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 86%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on TPA to IAD 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 8 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 1,110 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's TPA to IAD record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 83 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,101 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
85.8%
Every carrier on TPA to IAD, 1,288 flights
These figures cover 1,110 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
United against every carrier on TPA to IAD
United flew 1,110 of the 1,288 flights on TPA to IAD, most of the route. Its 85.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 85.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 86.7% to United at 85.6%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 178 | 86.7% | 74 min | 2.81% | A |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,110 | 85.6% | 72 min | 0.72% | A+ |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on TPA to IAD
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Departure window
When United runs best on this route
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–8am16 flights—
- 8am–11am355 flights94.0%
- 11am–2pm185 flights91.3%
- 2pm–5pm204 flights79.2%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights77.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 94.0% of the time, against 77.3% 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 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on TPA to IAD through the year
February is the weak month at 78.3% on time, against 95.6% in April. 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 113 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.0%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on TPA to IAD runs when it is late
United on TPA to IAD often beats the schedule: 373 of 1,101 completed flights, 34%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 158 late arrivals split 47 under half an hour, 44 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 67 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early373 flights33.9%
- Within 15 min570 flights51.8%
- 15–29 min late47 flights4.3%
- 30–59 min late44 flights4.0%
- 1–2 hours late40 flights3.6%
- 2+ hours late27 flights2.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,101 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 140 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 18% of them. 43 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on TPA to IAD
The latest arrival of the period was on 21 July 2026, 9 hours 28 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across July, June, March and November, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 21 July 2026 | 9 hours 28 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 18 July 2026 | 5 hours 52 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 June 2026 | 4 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 March 2026 | 3 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 2 November 2025 | 3 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 11,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%National Airspace System
- 30%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
38% 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 4,314 minutes out of 11,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 11,397 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 94.0% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.1% 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 83.6% on time across 1,109 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 1,110 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 United on TPA to IAD
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 95.6% on time and February 78.3%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,101 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to IAD, every carrier
- United on IAD to TPA, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to IAD86.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.