Flight number record

AA 1550

American Airlines · Charlotte to Tampa

Route: CLT → TPA
Departs: 18:14
Flights: 318
Period: July 2025 to June 2026

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s AA 1550, check with American Airlines.

AA 1550 sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 318 flights, with a median arrival right on schedule.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so AA 1550 runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 55 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.1%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 308 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.52%

National rate is 1.81%

1 hour+ late

9.7%

National rate is 8.1%

These figures cover 318 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Schedule

When AA 1550 flies

AA 1550 flies CLT to TPA without a single fixed slot. Its most common scheduled departure was 18:14, used on 47 of 318 flights, with 18:35 (44 flights) and 18:27 (37 flights) next. Carriers retime flights through the season, so the rates here blend slightly different positions in the aircraft's day.

Departs 18:1447 flights14.8%
Departs 18:3544 flights13.8%
Departs 18:2737 flights11.6%

Scale runs 0% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Share of scheduled departures at each local time. Times used on fewer than one flight in ten are not listed.

A 18:14 departure sits in the 5pm–8pm window. Across every US flight scheduled in that window the on-time rate is 68.2%, and AA 1550 runs 4 points better at 72.1%. By that time of day most aircraft have flown several legs already, and whatever went wrong earlier is still in the schedule.

Against the route

AA 1550 next to CLT to TPA

Every carrier on CLT to TPA combined arrived on time 75.1% of the time across 3,205 flights, so AA 1550 is 3 points behind it. American flew 2,978 flights on the same city pair under all its flight numbers, including this one, and those ran 75.4% on time. Across its whole network American Airlines managed 74.4%, which this flight trails by 2 points.

AA 1550 against its route and carrier
Compared with	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
AA 1550thin sample	318	72.1%	73 min	2.52%	C
All American Airlines on CLT–TPA	2,978	75.4%	61 min	1.58%	B
All carriers on CLT–TPA	3,205	75.1%	63 min	1.65%	B
American Airlines, whole network	986,297	74.4%	85 min	2.29%	C

Across the year

AA 1550 quarter by quarter

AA 1550 did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Oct–Dec 2025 at 76.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 60.2%, a swing of 17 points on roughly 80 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Jul–Sep 202587 flights60.2%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights76.9%
Jan–Mar 202690 flights76.5%
Apr–Jun 202650 flights75.5%

Scale runs 50% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

By weekday, AA 1550 did best on Wednesday at 85.1% on time and worst on Thursday at 59.5%. Each day rests on about 45 flights, so a gap of 26 points is worth noticing but could still narrow in another year.

Delay causes

Why AA 1550 runs late

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 6,293 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
62%
National Airspace System
19%
Carrier
16%
Extreme weather
4%

62% 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 6,293 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 6,293 delay minutes reported on AA 1550.

Cancellations run at 2.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.

Connections and routes

What a delay on this flight costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

The 507 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 same number turns up on four other city pairs in the data, including BOS to DCA (35), DCA to BOS (35) and TPA to DFW (5), but none flew often enough under AA 1550 to report a rate for. Carriers move flight numbers between routes, so the figures on this page apply to CLT to TPA only.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 318 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 AA 1550

For a booking, the cancellation rate is the figure to plan around on AA 1550: 2.52% of its 318 scheduled flights did not operate. A late arrival costs a little over an hour, but a cancellation costs the day, so leave a later option open.

Where to go next

A flight number here means American Airlines’s own number as it reports to the DOT. How the figures are computed is on the methodology page.

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.

Key figures