Carrier route record
AACLT→CVG
American Airlines · Charlotte to Cincinnati
- Flights
- 924
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 51%
- 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 CVG sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 924 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CLT to CVG runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 66 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 905 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.3%
Every carrier on CLT to CVG, 1,798 flights
These figures cover 924 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% 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 CVG
American flew 924 of the 1,798 flights on CLT to CVG, most of the route. Its 71.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 72.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 87.0% to American at 71.0%. 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 | 59 | 87.0% | 62 min | 8.47% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 815 | 72.7% | 72 min | 1.84% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 924 | 71.0% | 73 min | 1.95% | 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 26 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–8am24 flights—
- 8am–11am62 flights91.2%
- 11am–2pm129 flights65.9%
- 2pm–5pm177 flights65.7%
- 5pm–8pm132 flights73.5%
- 8pm–5am400 flights70.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 65.7% for the afternoon window. That is 26 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 400 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to CVG through the year
August is the worst month at 58.1% on time, 25 points below September, the best at 83.3%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 137 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.0%. 20 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 56% of the 19,000 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.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 19,055 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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.95% 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. 9.9% 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 335 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 80.0% on time across 924 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 924 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLT to CVG
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 924 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 71.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 905 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to CVG, every carrier
- American on CVG to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to CVG72.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) 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.