Does 'esperar que' always take the subjunctive?

I saw the sentence  "Espero que llega a tiempo" and I was wondering why it did not take the subjunctive ("Espero que llegue a tiempo").

Esperar que does not always take the subjunctive. In fact, the two sentences have two different meanings.

When 'esperar que' takes the indicative, it means 'to expect that' and when it takes the subjunctive it means 'to hope that.'

So, 'espero que llega a tiempo' means 'I expect that you arrive on time' (i.e. I am certain that...) and 'espero que llegue a tiempo' means 'I hope that you arrive on time' (i.e. I am not sure that...).