Route reliability record
CLT→BDL
Charlotte to Hartford
- Flights
- 1,673
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 644 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,673 CLT to BDL flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to BDL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.0%, against 74.6% 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
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,633 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.15%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
74.6% on time across 1,669 flights
These figures cover 1,673 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 BDL
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 Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 91 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,669 | 74.6% | 66 min | 2.16% | C |
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am223 flights94.1%
- 8am–11am128 flights89.4%
- 11am–2pm360 flights74.7%
- 2pm–5pm272 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm215 flights68.9%
- 8pm–5am475 flights66.5%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.1% of the time, against 66.5% for the overnight window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 475 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to BDL 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 BDL, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 66.5%, a wide gap of 27.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.1%
- 8–11am89.4%
- 11am–2pm74.7%
- 2–5pm69.8%
- 5–8pm68.9%
- 8pm–5am66.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 60.0% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 87.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 162 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.5%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 27,597 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 94.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.15% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.1% 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.
The 644 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.4% on time across 1,673 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,673 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 BDL 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. January runs 87.2% on time and July 60.0%, a swing of 27 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,633 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to BDL questions
How often is CLT to BDL 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 25.4% of the 1,673 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to BDL compared with the rest of the country?
74.6% 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 BDL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.5%, 28 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 BDL?
July is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 87.2% in January. Across the year that is 27 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
- BDL to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to BDL, a related route74.5%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.0%
- American Airlines on-time record74.6%
- 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 BDL and BDL 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.