Carrier route record
AACLT→CHS
American Airlines · Charlotte to Charleston
- Flights
- 1,791
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 71%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to CHS 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 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,791 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 CHS from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,765 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.34%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on CLT to CHS, 2,536 flights
These figures cover 1,791 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 CHS
American flew 1,791 of the 2,536 flights on CLT to CHS, most of the route. Its 74.8% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 90.5% to American at 74.8%. One 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 | 175 | 90.5% | 44 min | 3.43% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 570 | 76.6% | 65 min | 1.93% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,791 | 74.8% | 76 min | 1.34% | C |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CLT to CHS
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 16 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–8am36 flights80.0%
- 8am–11am185 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm219 flights85.3%
- 2pm–5pm312 flights73.5%
- 5pm–8pm389 flights70.2%
- 8pm–5am650 flights71.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 86.3% of the time, against 70.2% 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 650 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to CHS through the year
December is the weak month at 65.0% on time, against 84.1% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.1%. 19 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 58% of the 34,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% 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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 33,697 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.34% 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. 10.1% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.0% on time across 1,790 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 1,791 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 CHS
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 84.1% on time and December 65.0%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,765 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to CHS, every carrier
- American on CHS to CLT, the return leg
- Envoy Air on CLT to CHS90.5%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to CHS76.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.