Route reliability record
CLT→ATL
Charlotte to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,464
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 226 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 4,464 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,641 at 86.1% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.4%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,365 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.06%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
86.1% on time across 2,641 flights
These figures cover 4,464 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to ATL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 76.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,301 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,641 | 86.1% | 81 min | 1.51% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 203 | 81.9% | 68 min | 4.93% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,301 | 76.8% | 66 min | 2.61% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 319 | 71.3% | 78 min | 2.51% | C |
Delta leads PSA by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 21 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am888 flights88.8%
- 8am–11am887 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm659 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm750 flights77.9%
- 5pm–8pm802 flights74.8%
- 8pm–5am478 flights70.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 70.2% for the overnight window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
June is the worst month at 69.7% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 89.4%. 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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 58,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% 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 58,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 20,000 of the 58,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.06% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 are the a little over an hour kind, 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.5% on time across 4,461 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,464 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 this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.4% on time and June 69.7%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else.
Common questions
CLT to ATL questions
How often is CLT to ATL delayed?
About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.8% of the 4,464 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to ATL?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.1% on time across 2,641 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 76.8%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to ATL?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.2%, 21 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 June delays on CLT to ATL?
June is the weakest month at 69.7% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- ATL to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.1%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to ATL and ATL to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.