Carrier route record
WNTPA→RDU
Southwest Airlines · Tampa to Raleigh
- Flights
- 382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 30%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on TPA to RDU lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 382 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 379 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.8%
Every carrier on TPA to RDU, 1,280 flights
These figures cover 382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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.
Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on TPA to RDU
Southwest flew 382 of the 1,280 flights on TPA to RDU, about 30% of it. Its 77.8% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 86.2% to Frontier at 76.5%. 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 | 649 | 86.2% | 85 min | 2.00% | A |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 382 | 77.8% | 54 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 249 | 76.5% | 76 min | 2.01% | B |
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 39 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–8am13 flights—
- 8am–11am124 flights84.7%
- 11am–2pm39 flights92.3%
- 2pm–5pm150 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm56 flights53.7%
- 8pm–5am—
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 92.3% 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 150 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 89.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.3%. 25 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 4,557 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.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 1%Extreme weather
61% 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 4,557 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 61 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 4,557 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, 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 costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.5% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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. 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 runs 77.9% on time across 382 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 382 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. 382 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 77.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 379 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 RDU76.5%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
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.