Route reliability record
CLT→ATL
Charlotte to Atlanta
- Flights
- 4,383
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 226 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 4 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 4,383 CLT to ATL flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,587 at 86.2% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to ATL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.7%, against 81.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,290 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.2% on time across 2,587 flights
These figures cover 4,383 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 86.2% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 73.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,378 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,587 | 86.2% | 81 min | 1.31% | A |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 150 | 81.9% | 48 min | 4.00% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 268 | 73.9% | 79 min | 2.61% | C |
| PSA Airlines | 1,378 | 73.3% | 73 min | 2.83% | C |
The spread between Delta and PSA is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to ATL
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 Charlotte to Atlanta
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → ATLCharlotte to Atlanta | Delta Air Lines | 85.1% | 86.2% | 1.31% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 3186 05:30 |
| 2. CLT → ATLCharlotte to Atlanta | PSA Airlines | 71.2% | 73.3% | 2.83% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 24 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am815 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am909 flights89.3%
- 11am–2pm703 flights82.9%
- 2pm–5pm725 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm754 flights77.4%
- 8pm–5am477 flights67.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 67.0% for the overnight window. That is 24 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 909 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to ATL 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 ATL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 67.0%, a wide gap of 23.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.7%
- 8–11am89.3%
- 11am–2pm82.9%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm77.4%
- 8pm–5am67.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 64.3% on time, 25 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. August was the busiest month here, with 406 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.1%, a spread of 15 points.
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 61,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 61,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 61,343 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 80.1% on time across 4,381 flights, within about a point 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 4,383 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 ATL 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. September runs 89.4% on time and July 64.3%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 4,290 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 five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.7% of the 4,383 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 86.2% on time across 2,587 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 73.3%, a gap of 13 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 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.0%, 24 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 64.3% on time, compared with 89.4% in September. Across the year that is 25 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 CLT to ATL86.2%
- Envoy Air on CLT to ATL81.9%
- American Airlines on CLT to ATL73.9%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to ATL73.3%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record81.9%
- American Airlines on-time record73.9%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.