Route reliability record
ATL→CLT
Atlanta to Charlotte
- Flights
- 4,408
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 226 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,408 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 1,311 at 81.8% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,331 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
81.8% on time across 1,311 flights
These figures cover 4,408 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 1,311 | 81.8% | 95 min | 2.44% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,610 | 81.3% | 60 min | 1.15% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 309 | 80.7% | 108 min | 2.59% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 178 | 74.4% | 44 min | 3.37% | C− |
No carrier stands out. PSA tops the table at 81.8%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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–8am678 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am763 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm644 flights87.4%
- 2pm–5pm728 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm921 flights72.6%
- 8pm–5am674 flights74.9%
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 90.6% of the time, against 72.6% for the evening 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 921 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
Twelve months, one bar each, drawn from the same 4,408 flights. The strip shows how much of this route's record is set by the calendar rather than by the operation.
December is the weak month at 76.0% on time, against 87.3% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 408 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.5%. 8 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 42% of the 59,000 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.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
42% 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 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 59,286 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, 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 24,000 of the 59,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.02%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 226 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 runs 83.3% on time across 4,409 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,408 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: avoid the 5pm–8pm departure. It runs 72.6% on time against 90.6% for the 5am–8am slot, and that 18 points is the largest single thing you control here. PSA Airlines is the strongest operator if the fares are close. 4,331 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to CLT questions
How often is ATL to CLT delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.9% of the 4,408 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to CLT?
PSA Airlines leads at 81.8% on time across 1,311 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 81.3%, a gap of half a point. 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 ATL to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 72.6%, 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 ATL to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 76.0% on time, compared with 87.3% in September. Across the year that is 11 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.3%
- American Airlines on-time record80.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to CLT and CLT to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.