Route reliability record
TPA→MSP
Tampa to Minneapolis
- Flights
- 1,168
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,306 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,168 TPA to MSP flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to MSP: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.5%, against 81.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,156 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.94%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.9% on time across 1,168 flights
These figures cover 1,168 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to MSP
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,168 | 81.9% | 71 min | 0.94% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA to MSP
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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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am317 flights91.1%
- 8am–11am48 flights91.7%
- 11am–2pm316 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm210 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights76.4%
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.7% of the time, against 72.1% for the afternoon window. That is 20 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 317 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA to MSP 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 MSP, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.7% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.1%, a wide gap of 19.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am91.1%
- 8–11am91.7%
- 11am–2pm82.7%
- 2–5pm72.1%
- 5–8pm76.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 73.7% on time, against 90.8% in April. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%, a spread of 19 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 15,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 14,816 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,897 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.94% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,306 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 runs 80.1% on time across 1,167 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,168 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 MSP after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 90.8% on time and December 73.7%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,156 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to MSP questions
How often is TPA to MSP delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.1% of the 1,168 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to MSP compared with the rest of the country?
81.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 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 MSP?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.1%, 20 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 MSP?
December is the weakest month at 73.7% on time, compared with 90.8% in April. Across the year that is 17 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
- MSP to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to MSP, a related route69.9%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to MSP and MSP 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.