Carrier route record
AACLT→BWI
American Airlines · Charlotte to Baltimore
- Flights
- 1,809
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 60%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to BWI sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,809 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to BWI from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,775 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.77%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.5%
Every carrier on CLT to BWI, 2,996 flights
These figures cover 1,809 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to BWI
American flew 1,809 of the 2,996 flights on CLT to BWI, most of the route. Its 75.4% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number five of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to Spirit at 69.6%. Four of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 57 | 80.7% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 966 | 78.3% | 60 min | 1.66% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 139 | 76.5% | 100 min | 2.16% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,809 | 75.4% | 74 min | 1.77% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 24 | 69.6% | 91 min | 4.17% | C− |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am40 flights97.5%
- 8am–11am280 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm243 flights88.7%
- 2pm–5pm261 flights69.9%
- 5pm–8pm341 flights63.2%
- 8pm–5am644 flights74.4%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.2% on time, against 97.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 644 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to BWI through the year
July is the worst month at 47.6% on time, 41 points below September, the best at 89.0%. 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 190 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 80.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.2%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 8%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 32,000 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 32,158 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 97.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.77% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 361 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.7% on time across 1,809 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,809 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 American on CLT to BWI
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.0% on time and July 47.6%, a swing of 41 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,775 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to BWI, every carrier
- American on BWI to CLT, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on CLT to BWI78.3%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to BWI76.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.