Route reliability record
CLT→CHS
Charlotte to Charleston
- Flights
- 2,508
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 168 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,508 CLT to CHS flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,733 at 75.2% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to CHS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.1%, against 75.6% 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
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,463 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.71%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
75.2% on time across 1,733 flights
These figures cover 2,508 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% 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 CHS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 176 | 90.6% | 44 min | 3.41% | A− |
| American Airlines | 1,733 | 75.2% | 74 min | 1.27% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 599 | 72.1% | 69 min | 2.50% | C |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 75.2%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Charleston
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 → CHSCharlotte to Charleston | American Airlines | 74.2% | 75.2% | 1.27% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → CHSCharlotte to Charleston | PSA Airlines | 70.3% | 72.1% | 2.50% | 8am–11am, 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 16 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am52 flights84.3%
- 8am–11am338 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm536 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm488 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm418 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am676 flights70.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.3% of the time, against 68.4% for the evening window. That is 16 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 676 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to CHS 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 CHS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.4%, a wide gap of 15.9 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.3%
- 8–11am83.2%
- 11am–2pm83.5%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm68.4%
- 8pm–5am70.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 64.0% on time, 22 points below November, the best at 85.8%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 243 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.4%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 43,048 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 84.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.71% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.7% 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 168 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 82.7% on time across 2,506 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 2,508 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 CHS 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. November runs 85.8% on time and July 64.0%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,463 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to CHS questions
How often is CLT to CHS 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 24.4% of the 2,508 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 CHS?
American Airlines leads at 75.2% on time across 1,733 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 72.1%, a gap of 3 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 CHS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 16 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 CHS?
July is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 85.8% in November. Across the year that is 22 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
- CHS to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Charleston International (CHS) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on CLT to CHS90.6%
- American Airlines on CLT to CHS75.2%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to CHS72.1%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to CHS, a related route82.3%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record90.6%
- American Airlines on-time record75.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record72.1%
- 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 CHS and CHS 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.