Route reliability record
CLT→AVL
Charlotte to Asheville
- Flights
- 757
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 91 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% 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 C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 757 CLT to AVL flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to AVL: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.3%, against 73.9% 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 731 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
71.0% on time across 422 flights
These figures cover 757 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.7% 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 AVL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 24 | 90.5% | 30 min | 12.50% | A− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 311 | 76.5% | 90 min | 1.29% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 422 | 71.0% | 76 min | 4.27% | C− |
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 Asheville
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. CLT → AVLCharlotte to Asheville | PSA Airlines | 68.0% | 71.0% | 4.27% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → GSPCharlotte to Greer | PSA Airlines | 63.6% | 64.9% | 1.99% | 11am–2pm, 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 12 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm104 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm65 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm196 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am391 flights72.2%
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 83.8% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 71.4%. 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 391 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to AVL 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 AVL, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 83.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 71.4%, a wide gap of 12.4 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm83.8%
- 2–5pm71.4%
- 5–8pm72.7%
- 8pm–5am72.2%
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 31 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 55.2% on time, against 86.4% 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. September was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.6%, a spread of 26 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 15,488 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 3.30%, 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
10.7% 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 91 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 83.8% on time across 759 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 757 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 AVL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.30% 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. 731 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to AVL questions
How often is CLT to AVL 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 26.1% of the 757 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 AVL compared with the rest of the country?
73.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to AVL?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 83.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.4%, 12 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 CLT to AVL?
December is the weakest month at 55.2% on time, compared with 86.4% in November. Across the year that is 31 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
- AVL to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLT to AVL76.5%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to AVL71.0%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to AVL, a related route84.8%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.5%
- American Airlines on-time record76.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record71.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to AVL and AVL 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.