Carrier route record

DLTPA→LAX

Delta Air Lines · Tampa to Los Angeles

Flights: 659
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 55%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.

Delta on TPA to LAX lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six 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 659 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, Delta's TPA to LAX record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 55 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 649 completed flights

Avg delay

64 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.37%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

83.5%

Every carrier on TPA to LAX, 1,192 flights

These figures cover 659 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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

Delta against every carrier on TPA to LAX

Delta flew 659 of the 1,192 flights on TPA to LAX, most of the route. Its 83.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 83.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 89.7% 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.

On-time performance by carrier on TPA to LAX
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
United Airlines	390	89.7%	70 min	0.26%	A+
Delta Air Lines (this page)	659	83.1%	64 min	1.37%	B
Southwest Airlinesthin sample	143	68.5%	40 min	0.00%	C+

Flight by flight

Delta flight numbers on TPA to LAX

DL 53807:0087.7% · 365 flights

Departure window

When Delta runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 10 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–8am365 flights87.7%
8am–11am—
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm294 flights77.3%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.7% of the time, against 77.3% for the evening window. That is 10 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 365 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Delta on TPA to LAX through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 63.6% on time, against 90.7% in September. 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 58 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 89.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.8%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Delta 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 6,997 reported delay minutes.

Carrier
38%
Late-arriving aircraft
35%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
5%

35% 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 6,997 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 6,997 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,666 of the 6,997 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.37% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.2% 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 2,158 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 78.6% on time across 659 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 659 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 Delta on TPA to LAX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 659 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 83.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 649 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures