Route reliability record
ABE→CLT
Allentown to Charlotte
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 481 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 833 ABE to CLT flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Best time to fly ABE to CLT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.9% of the time and Friday flights 86.0%, against 82.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 54 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 796 completed flights
Avg delay
128 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
82.7% on time across 833 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ABE to CLT
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 833 | 82.7% | 128 min | 3.96% | B− |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Allentown to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. AVP → CLTAvoca to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 88.1% | 89.1% | 1.15% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. PHL → CLTPhiladelphia to Charlotte | American Airlines | 80.0% | 82.2% | 2.68% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. ABE → CLTAllentown to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 79.4% | 82.7% | 3.96% | 11am–2pm, Fri | — |
| 4. PHL → CLTPhiladelphia to Charlotte | Frontier Airlines | 67.4% | 69.8% | 3.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | F9 2387 06:00 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am365 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm182 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm94 flights80.4%
- 5pm–8pm182 flights69.7%
- 8pm–5am10 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.9% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 69.7%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ABE to CLT 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 ABE to CLT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 87.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.7%, a wide gap of 18.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am87.0%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm87.9%
- 2–5pm80.4%
- 5–8pm69.7%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 43 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 49.1% on time, 43 points below September, the best at 92.0%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.0% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.5%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 51% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 17,704 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 51%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,027 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.96%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 481 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.6% on time across 833 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 833 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.96% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 2.1 hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 796 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ABE to CLT questions
How often is ABE to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.3% of the 833 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.1 hours on average.
How reliable is ABE to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
82.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ABE to CLT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 87.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.7%, 18 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 ABE to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 49.1% on time, compared with 92.0% in September. Across the year that is 43 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
- CLT to ABE — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- ORD to CLT, a related route73.7%
- ATL to CLT, a related route80.1%
- PSA Airlines on-time record82.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ABE to CLT and CLT to ABE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.