Route reliability record

CLT→ATL

Charlotte to Atlanta

Flights: 4,409
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 226 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 4,409 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,611 at 87.2% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 57 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,323 completed flights

Avg delay

73 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.81%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

87.2% on time across 2,611 flights

These figures cover 4,409 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 87.2% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 78.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,310 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to ATL
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	2,611	87.2%	80 min	1.34%	A
Envoy Airthin sample	177	84.2%	49 min	3.39%	B−
PSA Airlines	1,310	78.2%	66 min	2.37%	B
American Airlinesthin sample	311	70.5%	78 min	2.57%	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 19 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am858 flights89.5%
8am–11am893 flights91.4%
11am–2pm681 flights84.7%
2pm–5pm725 flights78.6%
5pm–8pm786 flights77.0%
8pm–5am466 flights72.1%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 72.1% for the overnight 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 893 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 12 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, July worst

July is the worst month at 77.0% on time, 12 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. July was the busiest month here, with 409 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.0%. 13 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 53,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
40%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
17%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

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 53,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 52,885 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 19,000 of the 53,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

6.5% 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 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 81.1% on time across 4,408 flights, within 2 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 4,409 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 July 77.0%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,323 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

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 16.7% of the 4,409 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 87.2% on time across 2,611 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 78.2%, 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 91.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.1%, 19 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 ATL?

July is the weakest month at 77.0% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 12 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

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, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures