TPA → CLT Flight Reliability

Right now

Origin · TPANo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:53 UTC

Tampa airport profile →

Destination · CLTNo disruption reported

Aviation weather is not currently a factor.

Updated 07:52 UTC

Charlotte airport profile →

Route reliability

July 2023 – July 2026

Route Reliability Score

59/ 100Fair

Better than 33% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)

Calculated from 10,878 flights. How this is calculated

On-time arrivals

79.3%

8,428 of 10,628

Cancellation rate

2.16%

235 cancelled

Median arrival delay

-7 min

Average 9.0 min

Severe delays

8.1%

60+ minutes late

Delay when late

81 min

Average, when 15+ min late

Flights analyzed

10,878

2 carriers

TPA → CLT arrives on time 79.3% of the time; the return trip, CLT → TPA, arrives on time 73.1% of the time, a 6.2-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.

TPA → CLT spends 29.7 minutes on the ground on a 507-mile trip: 16.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at TPA and 13.5 minutes from touchdown to gate at CLT.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026

What stands out

Every airline on this route performs about the same, a narrower carrier gap than 93% of 2,692 comparable routes.

American Airlines (79.4% on time) and Spirit Airlines (78.1%) are close together here.

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 2,692 in the comparison.

Why TPA → CLT flights are cancelled

July 2023 – July 2026

TPA → CLT cancelled 235 of 10,878 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 46. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 86.4% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 54 scheduled flights.

Share of cancellations

Weather86.4%

Airline11.5%

Air traffic2.1%

Security0.0%

Of 235 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.

What each reason means

Extreme weather1 in 54

Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.

203 cancellations, 86.4% of the total.

The airline1 in 403

Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.

27 cancellations, 11.5% of the total.

The air traffic system1 in 2,176

Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.

5 cancellations, 2.1% of the total.

Security—

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.

235 coded cancellations were recorded on TPA → CLT; the section appears from 50.

When it goes wrong

July 2023 – July 2026

One arrival in ten is worse than

46 min late

against a median of 7 min early

Arrived an hour or more late8.1%

Typical delay when late81 min

Cancelled2.16%

Landed somewhere else0.14%

Percentiles over 10,878 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.

Will your connection be tight enough?

Layovers at CLT after arriving from TPA.

Connection buffer and chance of missing by layover length, TPA → CLT arrivals
Connection time	Chance of missing	Reads as
30 min	35%	Likely to miss
45 min	20%	High risk
60 min	14%	Some risk
90 min	8.0%	Some risk
120 min	5.1%	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 2.16% of the time and diverts 0.14% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.

Chance of missing is the share of 10,628 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 46 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,878 operations.

Any other layover length: connection checker.

Best time to fly

TPA → CLT flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 90.6% of the time, against 63.5% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 27.1 percentage points.

By day and hour

On-time arrival rate for each weekday and scheduled departure hour, in local time at the departure airport (TPA).

Hour of departure matters more than day of the week: hourly averages sit a typical 10.4 points from the route-wide rate, weekday averages 2.5 points.

On-time arrival rate for TPA to CLT by weekday and scheduled departure hour, local time. Each button reads out one slot.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM
7 AM–8 AM
8 AM–9 AM
9 AM–10 AM
10 AM–11 AM
11 AM–12 PM
12 PM–1 PM
1 PM–2 PM
2 PM–3 PM
3 PM–4 PM
4 PM–5 PM
5 PM–6 PM

On-time rate, % · stronger color, fewer on time

60–69
70–79
80–89
90–99

Fewer than 120 flights, not scored

Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · On time is arrival within 15 minutes of schedule. Cells round to whole percentages; the table shows one decimal.

No slot is named best or worst: too few reach 500 flights. Departures before 6 AM and after 6 PM (1,177 flights) are not drawn: no slot in those hours has enough flights to score.

View as tableHide table

On-time arrival rate (%) with flights beneath, by scheduled departure hour and weekday for TPA to CLT. A dash means fewer than 120 flights, which are not scored.
Hour	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
6 AM–7 AM	91.6% on time147 flights	96.6% on time122 flights	97.6% on time135 flights	92.4% on time153 flights	98.6% on time149 flights	92.0% on time142 flights	94.7% on time154 flights
7 AM–8 AM	93.2% on time168 flights	90.8% on time135 flights	96.3% on time141 flights	93.8% on time163 flights	91.3% on time167 flights	91.9% on time149 flights	87.2% on time158 flights
8 AM–9 AM	81.4% on time148 flights	87.2% on time129 flights	88.5% on time132 flights	82.8% on time159 flights	84.0% on time146 flights	84.2% on time156 flights	87.4% on time162 flights
9 AM–10 AM	87 flights, too few to score	97 flights, too few to score	86 flights, too few to score	72 flights, too few to score	92 flights, too few to score	72 flights, too few to score	70 flights, too few to score
10 AM–11 AM	91.0% on time135 flights	115 flights, too few to score	118 flights, too few to score	91.5% on time134 flights	82.0% on time135 flights	86.7% on time129 flights	84.4% on time135 flights
11 AM–12 PM	118 flights, too few to score	115 flights, too few to score	110 flights, too few to score	113 flights, too few to score	76.7% on time120 flights	112 flights, too few to score	118 flights, too few to score
12 PM–1 PM	87 flights, too few to score	81 flights, too few to score	83 flights, too few to score	91 flights, too few to score	86 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score	94 flights, too few to score
1 PM–2 PM	73.4% on time143 flights	81.7% on time133 flights	80.5% on time139 flights	69.5% on time143 flights	65.9% on time141 flights	76.2% on time145 flights	73.1% on time150 flights
2 PM–3 PM	48 flights, too few to score	69 flights, too few to score	59 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score	49 flights, too few to score	41 flights, too few to score	51 flights, too few to score
3 PM–4 PM	74.8% on time140 flights	71.3% on time134 flights	70.8% on time141 flights	71.0% on time142 flights	66.9% on time136 flights	69.6% on time139 flights	66.7% on time149 flights
4 PM–5 PM	66 flights, too few to score	69 flights, too few to score	78 flights, too few to score	53 flights, too few to score	71 flights, too few to score	44 flights, too few to score	50 flights, too few to score
5 PM–6 PM	63.3% on time147 flights	99 flights, too few to score	107 flights, too few to score	68.2% on time153 flights	68.0% on time154 flights	64.8% on time126 flights	63.2% on time150 flights

By departure window

5–9 AM90.6%

9 AM–12 PM85.2%

12–3 PM75.4%

3–6 PM69.0%

6–9 PM63.5%

9 PM–5 AM—

By departure hour

12 AM

3 AM

6 AM

9 AM

12 PM

3 PM

6 PM

9 PM

Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.

Why TPA → CLT runs late

July 2023 – July 2026

Late-arriving aircraft49.5%

the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late

The airline26.6%

crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control

Air traffic control16.9%

airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control

Weather7.0%

weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically

Security0.1%

screening or terminal security incidents

Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for TPA → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.

Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on TPA → CLT, at 49.5%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 90.6% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 63.5%.

How this route holds up in bad weather

July 2023 – July 2026

Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of TPA to CLT: 3.3 times the normal rate at TPA and 4.6 times at CLT. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: TPA 5.1% against 1.5%, CLT 5.7% against 1.2%. 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 TPA and CLT in hours of bad weather and in normal hours
Departures from	TPA	CLT
Cancelled in bad weather	5.1%	5.7%
Cancelled in normal hours	1.5%	1.2%
Arrived on time, bad weather	61.5%	63.5%
Arrived on time, normal hours	79.6%	75.9%
Departures in bad weather	17,505	55,311

American Airlines (5.8% cancelled against 4.7% for the other carriers at TPA) and Spirit Airlines (7.9% cancelled against 5.4% for the other carriers at TPA) cancelled more departures from TPA in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly better.

This route’s airlines in bad weather at TPA

All departures from TPA

Cancellation rates in bad weather at TPA for the airlines that fly TPA to CLT, against the other carriers at TPA in the same months
Airline	Bad-weather departures	Cancelled	Other carriers
American Airlines	3,076	5.8%above the others	4.7%
Spirit Airlines	966	7.9%above the others	5.4%

These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from TPA and CLT, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from TPA on every route.

Weather source and limits. In full: TPA (airlines), CLT, 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.

Airlines on this route
Carrier	Flights	On time	Cancelled	Median delay	Severe
American Airlines	10,079	79.4%	2.15%	-7 min	8.0%
Spirit Airlines	631	78.1%	2.06%	-6 min	9.1%

American Airlines flew 94.1% of the 10,710 flights listed.

Carriers on this route performed within a couple of percentage points of each other.

Flights on this route

Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.

Flights on this route
Flight	Scheduled	Operations	On time
AA1704 American Airlines	8:30 AM	791	85.3%
AA2538 American Airlines	7:25 AM	744	91.8%

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

Mon78.5%

Tue83.2%

Wed83.3%

Thu78.1%

Fri78.3%

Sat78.4%

Sun76.1%

Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 7.2 percentage points.

By month

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 22.4 percentage points.

Reliability over time

July 2023 – July 2026

24

25

26

Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 83.6% against 80.8% in the 12 months before — improving by 2.8 percentage points.

Data and methodology

Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,878 TPA → CLT 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

Analysis last recomputed September 26, 2026

TPA airport CLT airport Return direction CLT → TPA

TPA→CLT

Right now

Route reliability

What stands out

Why TPA → CLT flights are cancelled

Share of cancellations

What each reason means

When it goes wrong

Will your connection be tight enough?

Best time to fly

By day and hour

By departure window

By departure hour

Why TPA → CLT runs late

How this route holds up in bad weather

Bad weather and normal hours at the airports

This route’s airlines in bad weather at TPA

Airlines on this route

Flights on this route

Weekly and seasonal patterns

By day of week

By month

Reliability over time

Data and methodology