Route reliability record
TPA→PIT
Tampa to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 828
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 873 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 828 TPA to PIT flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.6% of the time and Saturday flights 83.9%, against 76.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 819 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
75.9% on time across 792 flights
These figures cover 828 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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
Which airline is most reliable on TPA to PIT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 36 | 82.4% | 65 min | 2.78% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 792 | 75.9% | 65 min | 0.63% | B+ |
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 48 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am271 flights96.6%
- 8am–11am107 flights91.5%
- 11am–2pm46 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm43 flights62.8%
- 5pm–8pm164 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am197 flights48.7%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 48.7% on time, against 96.6% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 271 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
November is the best month on the calendar at 91.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. May was the busiest month here, with 79 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.0%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 70% of the 13,000 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.
- 70%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
70% 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 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 28 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 12,670 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 96.6% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.72%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% 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 873 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 79.8% on time across 828 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 828 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in PIT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 828 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 76.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 819 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to PIT questions
How often is TPA to PIT 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 23.8% of the 828 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
76.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point against it. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 48.7%, 48 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 May delays on TPA to PIT?
May is the weakest month at 61.5% on time, compared with 91.8% in November. Across the year that is 30 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
- PIT to TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to PIT, a related route74.9%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to PIT and PIT to TPA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed TPA to PIT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.