Carrier route record

AACLT→DAB

American Airlines · Charlotte to Daytona Beach

Flights: 264
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 19%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on CLT to DAB lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 264 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to DAB from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 262 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.76%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.6%

Every carrier on CLT to DAB, 1,400 flights

These figures cover 264 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on CLT to DAB

American flew 264 of the 1,400 flights on CLT to DAB, about 19% of it. Its 79.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.8% to PSA at 79.6%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to DAB
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)thin sample	264	79.8%	61 min	0.76%	B+
PSA Airlines	1,136	79.6%	62 min	3.26%	B−

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 264 flights.

5am–8am2 flights—
8am–11am6 flights—
11am–2pm5 flights—
2pm–5pm104 flights77.7%
5pm–8pm33 flights87.5%
8pm–5am114 flights78.9%

Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The full set of windows spans 10 points.

Across the year

American on CLT to DAB through the year

Oct–Dec 202569 flights69.1%
Jan–Mar 2026102 flights83.2%
Apr–Jun 202693 flights83.9%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 79.8% on time across 264 flights.

American on CLT to DAB did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 83.9% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 69.1%, a swing of 15 points on roughly 88 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 90.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.5%. 30 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 45% of the 3,249 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
Carrier
39%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
2%
Security
1%

45% 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 3,249 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 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 3,249 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 1,274 of the 3,249 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.76%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 416 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 5pm–8pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.5% on time across 263 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 264 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 DAB

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 264 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 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 262 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures