Charleston, SC · departure reliability
CHS
Charleston International
- Departures
- 24,517
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Carriers
- 9
- US rank
- #60 by volume
Charleston
Charleston International lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 24,517 flights, of which Envoy Air flew 908 at 85.0% on time.
Envoy Air is the most reliable of the nine carriers covered here at 85.0% on time across 908 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.47%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
85.0% on time here
These figures cover 25,000 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of CHS
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Envoy Air arrives on time 85.0% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 64.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 381 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 5,132 | 81.3% | 99 min | 1.68% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 4,570 | 84.6% | 103 min | 2.21% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 3,661 | 77.7% | 50 min | 0.87% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 2,870 | 79.9% | 85 min | 1.53% | B |
| Republic Airways | 2,648 | 77.9% | 80 min | 5.32% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,836 | 71.6% | 120 min | 4.41% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,651 | 69.7% | 82 min | 3.76% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 908 | 85.0% | 72 min | 2.64% | A |
| Spirit Airlines | 381 | 64.8% | 67 min | 6.04% | D− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 6.0% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of CHS
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 19 busiest departures from CHS, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 78.9%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CHS to ATL · Atlanta | 3,234 | 88.9% | 79 min | 1.73% | A |
| CHS to CLT · Charlotte | 2,506 | 82.7% | 106 min | 1.84% | B |
| CHS to ORD · Chicago | 2,153 | 76.7% | 75 min | 2.32% | B |
| CHS to DCA · Washington | 1,748 | 71.8% | 114 min | 4.98% | C− |
| CHS to LGA · New York | 1,500 | 74.6% | 119 min | 6.53% | C− |
| CHS to EWR · Newark | 1,320 | 78.9% | 96 min | 3.56% | B− |
| CHS to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,236 | 81.0% | 92 min | 2.18% | B |
| CHS to BWI · Baltimore | 1,229 | 81.4% | 51 min | 1.55% | B |
| CHS to BOS · Boston | 1,150 | 69.5% | 93 min | 3.13% | C− |
| CHS to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,055 | 78.4% | 88 min | 1.90% | B |
| CHS to BNA · Nashville | 989 | 77.0% | 46 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| CHS to MIA · Miami | 953 | 80.1% | 102 min | 1.26% | B |
| CHS to JFK · New York | 789 | 73.5% | 84 min | 6.46% | C− |
| CHS to IAD · Washington | 762 | 84.7% | 93 min | 1.05% | B |
| CHS to DEN · Denver | 663 | 69.9% | 63 min | 0.60% | C+ |
| CHS to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 491 | 66.7% | 70 min | 3.05% | C− |
| CHS to DTW · Detroit | 485 | 83.4% | 104 min | 1.65% | B |
| CHS to MDW · Chicago | 384 | 79.4% | 53 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| CHS to DAL · Dallas | 365 | 78.3% | 55 min | 0.82% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave CHS
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 points, against 20 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am5,083 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am2,719 flights89.8%
- 11am–2pm5,079 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm5,145 flights71.2%
- 5pm–8pm5,109 flights69.7%
- 8pm–5am1,382 flights62.5%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 62.5% on time, against 91.6% for the 5am–8am 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 5,145 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CHS departures by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On departures from Charleston (CHS), the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 62.5%, a wide gap of 29.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.6%
- 8–11am89.8%
- 11am–2pm81.6%
- 2–5pm71.2%
- 5–8pm69.7%
- 8pm–5am62.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When CHS runs late
CHS's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 71.6% on time, 13 points below September, the best at 84.5%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. May was the busiest month here, with 2,200 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 10 points.
CHS month by month
Delay causes
Why CHS gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 430,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 25%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 430,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 430,206 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.47% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.37%.
8.5% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
24,517 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of CHS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.5% on time and July 71.6%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 23,821 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CHS delay questions
How often is Charleston (CHS) delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.1% of the 24,517 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Charleston (CHS)?
Envoy Air leads at 85.0% on time across 908 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 64.8%, a gap of 20 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Charleston (CHS)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 62.5%, 29 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on Charleston (CHS)?
July is the weakest month at 71.6% on time, compared with 84.5% in September. Across the year that is 13 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CHS to ATL — Atlanta88.9%
- CHS to CLT — Charlotte82.7%
- CHS to ORD — Chicago76.7%
- CHS to DCA — Washington71.8%
- CHS to LGA — New York74.6%
- CHS to EWR — Newark78.9%
- American Airlines on-time record81.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record84.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.7%
- United Airlines on-time record79.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Air traffic control delays, airport by airport
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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.