Carrier route record
DLATL→CLT
Delta Air Lines · Atlanta to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,610
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on ATL to CLT lands a B, 4 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,610 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on ATL to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,579 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.15%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on ATL to CLT, 4,408 flights
These figures cover 2,610 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Delta against every carrier on ATL to CLT
Delta flew 2,610 of the 4,408 flights on ATL to CLT, most of the route. Its 81.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 81.8% to Envoy at 74.4%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 1,311 | 81.8% | 95 min | 2.44% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 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− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on ATL to CLT
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 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–8am306 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am359 flights86.6%
- 11am–2pm409 flights87.2%
- 2pm–5pm386 flights76.8%
- 5pm–8pm644 flights73.0%
- 8pm–5am506 flights80.0%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 73.0% for the evening window. That is 19 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 644 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on ATL to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 74.9% on time, 13 points below February, the best at 88.0%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 250 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.8% on time and Tuesday the weakest at 78.8%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 29,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, 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 14,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 28,992 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.15% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.1% 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 about an hour, 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 87.2% on time across 2,611 flights, 6 points above 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,610 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 Delta on ATL to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 88.0% on time and July 74.9%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,579 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ATL to CLT, every carrier
- Delta on CLT to ATL, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on ATL to CLT81.8%
- American Airlines on ATL to CLT80.7%
- Envoy Air on ATL to CLT74.4%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.