Route reliability record
ABE→CLT
Allentown to Charlotte
- Flights
- 852
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 481 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth an A− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 852 ABE to CLT flights, with a median arrival 16 minutes early.
Best time to fly ABE to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Friday flights 91.5%, against 86.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 91 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 819 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.52%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
86.7% on time across 852 flights
These figures cover 852 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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.
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 | 852 | 86.7% | 109 min | 3.52% | A− |
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 | 88.3% | 89.5% | 1.39% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ABE → CLTAllentown to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 83.6% | 86.7% | 3.52% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 3. PHL → CLTPhiladelphia to Charlotte | American Airlines | 80.2% | 82.3% | 2.55% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. PHL → CLTPhiladelphia to Charlotte | Frontier Airlines | 71.0% | 72.6% | 2.21% | 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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am363 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am2 flights—
- 11am–2pm182 flights87.9%
- 2pm–5pm120 flights83.1%
- 5pm–8pm140 flights80.1%
- 8pm–5am45 flights73.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 73.3% for the overnight window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
December is the weak month at 78.8% on time, against 92.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. September was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 91.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.2%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 12,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 43%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 11,871 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 5,067 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.52%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.8% on time across 852 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 852 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 3.52% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 819 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 eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.3% of the 852 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is ABE to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
86.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ABE to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.3%, 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 December delays on ABE to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 78.8% on time, compared with 92.0% 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
- CLT to ABE — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- ATL to CLT, a related route81.1%
- LGA to CLT, a related route77.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record86.7%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.