Carrier route record
WNTPA→RDU
Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Raleigh
- Flights
- 383
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on TPA to RDU lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 383 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on TPA to RDU from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 380 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.6%
Every carrier on TPA to RDU, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 383 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Southwest against every carrier on TPA to RDU
Southwest flew 383 of the 1,294 flights on TPA to RDU, about 30% of it. Its 76.1% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.2% to Southwest at 76.1%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 651 | 86.2% | 79 min | 2.00% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 78.2% | 85 min | 3.08% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 383 | 76.1% | 57 min | 0.78% | B+ |
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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 40 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am10 flights—
- 8am–11am118 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm32 flights93.8%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights76.0%
- 5pm–8pm56 flights53.7%
- 8pm–5am12 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 53.7% on time, against 93.8% for the 11am–2pm 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 155 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on TPA to RDU through the year
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 55.6%. June is the strongest month at 90.0%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 34 points. December was the busiest month here, with 42 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.9%, a spread of 26 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on TPA to RDU runs when it is late
The 91 late arrivals split 35 under half an hour, 35 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early56 flights14.7%
- Within 15 min233 flights61.3%
- 15–29 min late35 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late35 flights9.2%
- 1–2 hours late11 flights2.9%
- 2+ hours late10 flights2.6%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 380 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
24 of 98 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. 17 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on TPA to RDU
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 May 2026, 9 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 May 2026 | 9 hours 5 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 November 2025 | 4 hours 37 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 13 July 2026 | 3 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 June 2026 | 3 hours 51 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 16 March 2026 | 3 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 57% of the 5,190 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 57%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
57% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,190 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 57 to one. The split is drawn from 5,190 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.78%, below the national 1.89% 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 costs
5.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 587 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 80.6% on time across 383 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 383 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 RDU
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 383 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 76.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- TPA to RDU, every carrier
- Southwest on RDU to TPA, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on TPA to RDU86.2%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to RDU78.2%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.