Route reliability record
CAK→CLT
Akron to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,421
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 394 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,421 CAK to CLT flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly CAK to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.1%, against 79.9% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,386 completed flights
Avg delay
105 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.32%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
79.9% on time across 1,421 flights
These figures cover 1,421 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CAK 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 | 1,421 | 79.9% | 105 min | 2.32% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on CAK 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Akron 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. CLE → CLTCleveland to Charlotte | American Airlines | 81.1% | 82.2% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2021 08:06 |
| 2. CAK → CLTAkron to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 78.0% | 79.9% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Wed | OH 5495 06:19 |
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am351 flights85.4%
- 8am–11am405 flights83.0%
- 11am–2pm288 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm58 flights77.6%
- 5pm–8pm310 flights71.3%
- 8pm–5am9 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 85.4% of the time, against 71.3% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 405 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CAK to CLT by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On CAK to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 85.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.3%, a wide gap of 14.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am85.4%
- 8–11am83.0%
- 11am–2pm79.6%
- 2–5pm77.6%
- 5–8pm71.3%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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.
December is the weak month at 69.2% on time, against 90.8% in November. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 136 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 29,148 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.32% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 394 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 71.1% on time across 1,421 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,421 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. November runs 90.8% on time and December 69.2%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,386 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CAK to CLT questions
How often is CAK 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 20.1% of the 1,421 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CAK to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
79.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CAK to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 85.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.3%, 14 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 CAK to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 69.2% on time, compared with 90.8% in November. 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 CAK — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CAK to ORD, a related route72.5%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- ORD to CLT, a related route73.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record79.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. CAK to CLT and CLT to CAK 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.