Carrier route record

WNTPA→LAX

Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Los Angeles

Flights: 177
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 15%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on TPA to LAX sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land roughly 45 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 177 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on TPA to LAX runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 50 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 177 completed flights

Avg delay

46 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.00%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

83.6%

Every carrier on TPA to LAX, 1,165 flights

These figures cover 177 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. On-time means an arrival less than 15 minutes after the scheduled gate time, the same threshold the Department of Transportation uses in its own reports. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and counted separately, which is why the cancellation column matters on its own.

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Carrier by carrier

Southwest against every carrier on TPA to LAX

Southwest flew 177 of the 1,165 flights on TPA to LAX, about 15% of it. Its 72.3% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 83.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 89.9% to Southwest at 72.3%. 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 Airlinesthin sample	328	89.9%	65 min	0.30%	A+
Delta Air Lines	660	83.5%	62 min	1.36%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample	177	72.3%	46 min	0.00%	C+

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Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 177 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am61 flights70.5%
11am–2pm84 flights78.6%
2pm–5pm20 flights—
5pm–8pm12 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 78.6% on time, ahead of 8am–11am at 70.5%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 84 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on TPA to LAX through the year

Jan–Mar 202652 flights76.9%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights63.7%
Jul–Sep 202634 flights88.2%

Scale runs 55% to 95%.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 72.3% on time across 177 flights.

Southwest on TPA to LAX did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 88.2% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 63.7%, a swing of 25 points on roughly 59 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Arrival by arrival

How late Southwest on TPA to LAX runs when it is late

The 49 late arrivals split 21 under half an hour, 19 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 9 an hour or more.

15+ min early28 flights15.8%
Within 15 min100 flights56.5%
15–29 min late21 flights11.9%
30–59 min late19 flights10.7%
1–2 hours late7 flights4.0%
2+ hours late2 flights1.1%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 177 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

A late pushback is often recovered here: of 57 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 23 still arrived on time. In the other direction, 15 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at LAX.

The worst days

Worst days for Southwest on TPA to LAX

The latest arrival of the period was on 1 August 2026, 5 hours 51 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).

The latest arrivals of Southwest on TPA to LAX in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
1 August 2026	5 hours 51 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
10 June 2026	2 hours 19 minutes	Carrier
24 May 2026	1 hour 36 minutes	Carrier
21 May 2026	1 hour 32 minutes	Carrier
16 March 2026	1 hour 26 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

Carrier accounts for 44% of the 2,259 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Carrier
44%
Late-arriving aircraft
37%
National Airspace System
19%

37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 2,259 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 37 to one. The split is drawn from 2,259 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 999 of the 2,259 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.00%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Almost no flights are called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.1% 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 roughly 45 minutes, 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 61.4% on time across 177 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 177 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 LAX

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 177 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 72.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 177 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures