Route reliability record
TPA→LGA
Tampa to New York
- Flights
- 2,764
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,010 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,764 TPA to LGA flights, of which American Airlines flew 683 at 82.4% on time.
Best time to fly TPA to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.6%, against 74.3% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
74.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,651 completed flights
Avg delay
93 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.29%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
82.4% on time across 683 flights
These figures cover 2,764 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 82.4% of the time; Delta Air Lines manages 72.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,724 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 683 | 82.4% | 136 min | 2.49% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,724 | 72.8% | 85 min | 3.54% | C− |
| JetBlue Airwaysthin sample | 354 | 66.8% | 79 min | 3.67% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 33.3% | 49 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Delta Air Lines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA to LGA
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 New York
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SRQ → EWRSarasota to Newark | United Airlines | 83.8% | 85.3% | 1.77% | 5am–8am, Fri | UA 2612 12:15 |
| 2. TPA → LGATampa to New York | American Airlines | 80.3% | 82.4% | 2.49% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. TPA → JFKTampa to New York | Delta Air Lines | 80.2% | 82.3% | 2.56% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2475 07:16 |
| 4. TPA → EWRTampa to Newark | United Airlines | 77.8% | 79.4% | 2.06% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. TPA → LGATampa to New York | Delta Air Lines | 70.2% | 72.8% | 3.54% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2723 07:00 |
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 30 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am643 flights89.8%
- 8am–11am173 flights76.2%
- 11am–2pm740 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm511 flights67.2%
- 5pm–8pm485 flights60.6%
- 8pm–5am212 flights60.0%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 60.0% on time, against 89.8% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 740 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 60.0%, a wide gap of 29.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.8%
- 8–11am76.2%
- 11am–2pm78.5%
- 2–5pm67.2%
- 5–8pm60.6%
- 8pm–5am60.0%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
December is the weak month at 60.3% on time, against 88.8% 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. December was the busiest month here, with 281 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%, a spread of 17 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 63,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 63,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 to one. The split is drawn from 63,102 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 89.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.29%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,010 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.5% on time across 2,763 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,764 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.29% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,651 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to LGA questions
How often is TPA to LGA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.7% of the 2,764 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to LGA?
American Airlines leads at 82.4% on time across 683 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 60.0%, 30 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 December delays on TPA to LGA?
December is the weakest month at 60.3% on time, compared with 88.8% in September. Across the year that is 29 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
- LGA to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on TPA to LGA82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to LGA72.8%
- JetBlue Airways on TPA to LGA66.8%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- American Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record72.8%
- JetBlue Airways on-time record66.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. TPA to LGA and LGA 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.