Carrier route record
AATPA→LGA
American Airlines · Tampa to New York
- Flights
- 690
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 24%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on TPA to LGA lands a B−, about a point 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 close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 690 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Delta Air Lines, flew 1,666 at 72.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on TPA to LGA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 662 completed flights
Avg delay
122 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.7%
Every carrier on TPA to LGA, 2,841 flights
These figures cover 690 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on TPA to LGA
American flew 690 of the 2,841 flights on TPA to LGA, about 24% of it. Its 78.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 72.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.5% to Southwest at 33.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 72.8% of the time; JetBlue Airways manages 64.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 478 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 690 | 78.5% | 122 min | 3.04% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,666 | 72.8% | 84 min | 3.30% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 478 | 64.5% | 79 min | 3.77% | D− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 4 | 50.0% | 40 min | 0.00% | F+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 3 | 33.3% | 49 min | 0.00% | F+ |
JetBlue Airways cancels 3.8% 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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 61 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am234 flights92.8%
- 8am–11am40 flights79.5%
- 11am–2pm316 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm45 flights71.1%
- 5pm–8pm55 flights31.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 25% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 31.4% on time, against 92.8% 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 316 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on TPA to LGA through the year
July is the worst month at 47.1% on time, 44 points below June, the best at 90.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 72 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 17,000 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.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
62% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 17,369 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 92.8% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.4% on time across 690 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. 690 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 American on TPA to LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.04% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 662 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to LGA, every carrier
- American on LGA to TPA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to LGA72.8%
- JetBlue Airways on TPA to LGA64.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.