Carrier route record

AAATL→CLT

American Airlines · Atlanta to Charlotte

Flights: 309
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 7%
Carriers: 4

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

American on ATL to CLT lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 309 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, 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 American on ATL to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 301 completed flights

Avg delay

108 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.59%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.1%

Every carrier on ATL to CLT, 4,408 flights

These figures cover 309 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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

American against every carrier on ATL to CLT

American flew 309 of the 4,408 flights on ATL to CLT, about 7% of it. Its 80.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 81.8% to Envoy at 74.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to CLT
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 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–8am172 flights88.2%
8am–11am59 flights84.9%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm5 flights—
5pm–8pm39 flights61.5%
8pm–5am34 flights55.9%

Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.9% on time, against 88.2% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 172 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on ATL to CLT through the year

Jul–Sep 202574 flights67.1%
Oct–Dec 202588 flights79.5%
Jan–Mar 202692 flights88.2%
Apr–Jun 202655 flights89.1%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.7% on time across 309 flights.

American on ATL to CLT did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 89.1% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 67.1%, a swing of 22 points on roughly 77 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.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 91.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.4%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 6,283 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
45%
Carrier
43%
Extreme weather
7%
National Airspace System
5%

45% 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 6,283 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 6,283 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 2,677 of the 6,283 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations run at 2.59%, 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 stage length

What a delay here costs

6.6% 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 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 70.5% on time across 311 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 309 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 American on ATL to CLT

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 309 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 301 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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