Route reliability record
CLT→ABE
Charlotte to Allentown
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 481 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.6% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 833 CLT to ABE flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to ABE: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.4% of the time and Thursday flights 80.9%, against 76.6% 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
76.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 800 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.60%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
76.6% on time across 833 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 CLT to ABE
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 | 833 | 76.6% | 70 min | 3.60% | B− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Allentown
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → AVPCharlotte to Avoca | PSA Airlines | 80.3% | 81.2% | 1.15% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 2. CLT → PHLCharlotte to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 77.1% | 79.1% | 2.47% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → ABECharlotte to Allentown | PSA Airlines | 73.8% | 76.6% | 3.60% | 11am–2pm, Thu | — |
| 4. CLT → PHLCharlotte to Philadelphia | Frontier Airlines | 62.0% | 65.9% | 5.92% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
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–8am—
- 8am–11am151 flights83.9%
- 11am–2pm104 flights86.4%
- 2pm–5pm208 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm12 flights—
- 8pm–5am358 flights72.6%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 86.4% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 72.3%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 358 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to ABE 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 CLT to ABE, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 86.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 72.3%, a wide gap of 14.1 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.9%
- 11am–2pm86.4%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am72.6%
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 44 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.
July is the worst month at 46.4% on time, 44 points below October, the best at 90.2%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 90 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 74.3%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 13,059 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.60%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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 actually costs
10.0% 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 481 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.7% on time across 833 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 833 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in ABE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.60% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 11am–2pm departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 800 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to ABE questions
How often is CLT to ABE delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.4% of the 833 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to ABE compared with the rest of the country?
76.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to ABE?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 86.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 72.3%, 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 July delays on CLT to ABE?
July is the weakest month at 46.4% on time, compared with 90.2% in October. Across the year that is 44 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
- ABE to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- CLT to ATL, a related route81.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.6%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to ABE and ABE to CLT 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.