Route profile
CLT→TPA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Charlotte to Tampa, 507 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 16% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,879 flights. How this is calculated
CLT → TPA arrives on time 73.1% of the time; the return trip, TPA → CLT, arrives on time 79.3% of the time, a 6.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLT → TPA spends 23.8 minutes on the ground on a 507-mile trip: 17.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLT and 6.3 minutes from touchdown to gate at TPA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
Reliability here swings unusually widely by season, a wider month-to-month spread than 97% of 3,357 comparable routes.
83.6% on time in a typical November, against 56.3% in July.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.
Why CLT → TPA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLT → TPA cancelled 230 of 10,879 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 47. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 85.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 55 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 230 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
197 cancellations, 85.7% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
28 cancellations, 12.2% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
5 cancellations, 2.2% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
230 coded cancellations were recorded on CLT → TPA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
56 min late
against a median of 2 min early
Percentiles over 10,879 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at TPA after arriving from CLT.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 44% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 26% | High risk |
| 60 min | 18% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.2% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.4% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 2.11% of the time and diverts 0.16% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 10,632 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 56 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,879 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLT → TPA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 88.5% of the time, against 58.8% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 29.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 92.2% on time from 174 flights
- 7 AM: 88.4% on time from 904 flights
- 8 AM: 87.2% on time from 561 flights
- 9 AM: 84.0% on time from 893 flights
- 10 AM: 84.1% on time from 359 flights
- 11 AM: 81.2% on time from 1,015 flights
- 12 PM: 77.4% on time from 403 flights
- 1 PM: 77.8% on time from 903 flights
- 2 PM: 72.0% on time from 581 flights
- 3 PM: 68.5% on time from 677 flights
- 4 PM: 62.6% on time from 395 flights
- 5 PM: 61.4% on time from 672 flights
- 6 PM: 61.2% on time from 999 flights
- 7 PM: 68.7% on time from 322 flights
- 8 PM: 61.3% on time from 982 flights
- 9 PM: 66.0% on time from 152 flights
- 10 PM: 57.6% on time from 844 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why CLT → TPA runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for CLT → TPA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLT → TPA, at 50.1%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 88.5% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 58.8%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of CLT to TPA: 4.6 times the normal rate at CLT and 3.3 times at TPA. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: CLT 5.7% against 1.2%, TPA 5.1% against 1.5%. Flights that did leave TPA in bad weather arrived on time 61.5% of the time, against 79.6% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | CLT | TPA |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 5.7% | 5.1% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 63.5% | 61.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 75.9% | 79.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 55,311 | 17,505 |
American Airlines (5.3% cancelled against 6.4% for the other carriers at CLT) cancelled fewer departures from CLT in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at CLT
All departures from CLT| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 33,044 | 5.3%below the others | 6.4% |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,090 | 6.1%about level | 5.7% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from CLT and TPA, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from CLT on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: CLT (airlines), TPA, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 10,077 | 72.5% | 2.06% | -2 min | 9.5% |
| Spirit Airlines | 633 | 83.0% | 2.05% | -6 min | 5.0% |
American Airlines flew 94.1% of the 10,710 flights listed.
Spirit Airlines arrived on time 10.5 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2022 American Airlines | 8:15 PM | 1,094 | 63.6% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 9.7 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.9%
- Feb: 80.0%
- Mar: 75.0%
- Apr: 76.6%
- May: 67.3%
- Jun: 66.9%
- Jul: 56.3%
- Aug: 62.2%
- Sep: 77.2%
- Oct: 80.0%
- Nov: 83.6%
- Dec: 73.8%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 27.3 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 54.9% from 270 flights
- August 2023: 58.2% from 278 flights
- September 2023: 70.6% from 219 flights
- October 2023: 77.9% from 291 flights
- November 2023: 80.8% from 318 flights
- December 2023: 75.5% from 318 flights
- January 2024: 75.6% from 315 flights
- February 2024: 76.9% from 316 flights
- March 2024: 65.4% from 363 flights
- April 2024: 74.3% from 349 flights
- May 2024: 55.5% from 345 flights
- June 2024: 63.5% from 304 flights
- July 2024: 50.2% from 305 flights
- August 2024: 63.3% from 300 flights
- September 2024: 75.0% from 276 flights
- October 2024: 81.1% from 296 flights
- November 2024: 88.4% from 311 flights
- December 2024: 71.6% from 335 flights
- January 2025: 87.1% from 333 flights
- February 2025: 83.9% from 299 flights
- March 2025: 82.6% from 357 flights
- April 2025: 78.3% from 336 flights
- May 2025: 76.0% from 315 flights
- June 2025: 63.5% from 310 flights
- July 2025: 56.5% from 314 flights
- August 2025: 64.6% from 289 flights
- September 2025: 84.8% from 264 flights
- October 2025: 81.0% from 259 flights
- November 2025: 81.2% from 271 flights
- December 2025: 74.5% from 272 flights
- January 2026: 79.6% from 263 flights
- February 2026: 79.3% from 245 flights
- March 2026: 78.1% from 285 flights
- April 2026: 77.5% from 283 flights
- May 2026: 72.3% from 250 flights
- June 2026: 76.8% from 210 flights
- July 2026: 65.9% from 215 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.4% against 75.7% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,879 CLT → TPA flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed