Carrier route record
WNTPA→ORD
Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Chicago
- Flights
- 214
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 7%
- Carriers
- 7
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on TPA to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 10 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 214 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, United Airlines, flew 1,403 at 75.0% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so Southwest on TPA to ORD runs 10 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 95 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 210 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.8%
Every carrier on TPA to ORD, 3,214 flights
These figures cover 214 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on TPA to ORD
Southwest flew 214 of the 3,214 flights on TPA to ORD, about 7% of it. Its 68.1% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number six of seven carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Frontier at 62.3%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| United Airlines | 1,403 | 75.0% | 75 min | 0.50% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,140 | 73.2% | 96 min | 1.93% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 281 | 69.1% | 87 min | 3.20% | C− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 214 | 68.1% | 57 min | 0.93% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 173 | 62.3% | 139 min | 5.20% | D− |
No carrier stands out. United tops the table at 75.0%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am39 flights71.8%
- 11am–2pm97 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm78 flights49.3%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 40% 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 81.2% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 49.3%. 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 97 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on TPA to ORD through the year
- Oct–Dec 202560 flights75.0%
- Jan–Mar 202690 flights71.6%
- Apr–Jun 202664 flights56.5%
Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 68.1% on time across 214 flights.
Southwest on TPA to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 75.0% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 56.5%, a swing of 19 points on roughly 71 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 53.3%. 31 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 46% of the 3,836 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.
- 46%National Airspace System
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 2%Security
46% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 1,752 minutes out of 3,836, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 3,836 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.93% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.93%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.7% 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.
The 1,012 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 71.2% on time across 214 flights, 3 points above 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 214 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 ORD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 214 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 68.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 210 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to ORD, every carrier
- Southwest on ORD to TPA, the return leg
- United Airlines on TPA to ORD75.0%
- American Airlines on TPA to ORD73.2%
- Spirit Airlines on TPA to ORD69.1%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to ORD62.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.