Route reliability record
TPA→LAS
Tampa to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 1,034
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,984 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,034 TPA to LAS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to LAS: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.6%, against 80.3% for the route overall.
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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,028 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.58%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
80.3% on time across 687 flights
These figures cover 1,034 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 LAS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 230 | 80.8% | 85 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 687 | 80.3% | 48 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 117 | 79.1% | 65 min | 1.71% | B |
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 24 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–8am349 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am194 flights90.2%
- 11am–2pm25 flights—
- 2pm–5pm136 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm252 flights66.4%
- 8pm–5am78 flights73.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.2% of the time, against 66.4% for the evening window. That is 24 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 349 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 1,034 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
June is the worst month at 76.0% on time, 10 points below January, the best at 86.4%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%. 18 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 47% of the 12,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 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 11,849 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 90.2% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.58%, below the national 1.81% 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 actually costs
5.4% 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 1,984 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.6% on time across 1,036 flights, 12 points below 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 12 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,034 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,034 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 80.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,028 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to LAS questions
How often is TPA to LAS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.7% of the 1,034 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
80.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to LAS?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.4%, 24 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 June delays on TPA to LAS?
June is the weakest month at 76.0% on time, compared with 86.4% in January. Across the year that is 10 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
- LAS to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to LAS80.8%
- Southwest Airlines on TPA to LAS80.3%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to LAS79.1%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.9%
- LAX to LAS, a related route76.5%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record80.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to LAS and LAS 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.