Route reliability record
BUF→CLT
Buffalo to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,192
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 546 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, about a point 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,192 BUF to CLT flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly BUF to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.4%, against 78.8% for the route overall.
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
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,167 completed flights
Avg delay
98 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.01%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
78.8% on time across 1,191 flights
These figures cover 1,192 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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 BUF 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,191 | 78.8% | 98 min | 2.02% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on BUF to CLT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Buffalo 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. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ROC → CLTRochester to Charlotte | American Airlines | 79.2% | 80.8% | 1.94% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BUF → CLTBuffalo to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.2% | 78.8% | 2.02% | 5am–8am, Wed (route) | AA 1203 11:54 |
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 22 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–8am349 flights88.3%
- 8am–11am29 flights—
- 11am–2pm406 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm45 flights66.7%
- 5pm–8pm354 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 66.7% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 406 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
January is the weak month at 67.5% on time, against 89.0% in April. 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 122 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.9%. 15 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 48% of the 24,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 24,151 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 8,760 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.01% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 546 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.0% on time across 1,192 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,192 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 89.0% on time and January 67.5%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,167 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BUF to CLT questions
How often is BUF to CLT delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.2% of the 1,192 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is BUF to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of about a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BUF to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 66.7%, 22 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 January delays on BUF to CLT?
January is the weakest month at 67.5% on time, compared with 89.0% in April. Across the year that is 22 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 BUF — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- BUF to ORD, a related route74.0%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- BUF to LGA, a related route78.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record100.0%
- American Airlines on-time record78.8%
- 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. BUF to CLT and CLT to BUF 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.