Carrier route record
AACLT→DEN
American Airlines · Charlotte to Denver
- Flights
- 1,717
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 61%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to DEN sits in the middle of the pack with a B. 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 about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,717 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 DEN from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,692 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.22%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.0%
Every carrier on CLT to DEN, 2,816 flights
These figures cover 1,717 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 DEN
American flew 1,717 of the 2,816 flights on CLT to DEN, most of the route. Its 75.1% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number four of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.1% to Southwest at 65.6%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 675 | 85.1% | 79 min | 1.19% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 84.2% | 214 min | 5.00% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 215 | 76.9% | 56 min | 1.40% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,717 | 75.1% | 61 min | 1.22% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 189 | 65.6% | 52 min | 1.59% | 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 25 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–8am141 flights88.6%
- 8am–11am254 flights86.1%
- 11am–2pm475 flights81.6%
- 2pm–5pm110 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm423 flights63.4%
- 8pm–5am314 flights66.9%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.4% on time, against 88.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 475 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to DEN through the year
July is the worst month at 53.1% on time, 32 points below November, the best at 84.7%. 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. December was the busiest month here, with 156 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.9%. 12 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 42% of the 26,000 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.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
42% 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 26,000 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 25,792 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 88.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.22% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
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. 9.1% 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.
The 1,337 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.1% on time across 1,715 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,717 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 DEN
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 84.7% on time and July 53.1%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,692 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to DEN, every carrier
- American on DEN to CLT, the return leg
- United Airlines on CLT to DEN85.1%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to DEN76.9%
- Southwest Airlines on CLT to DEN65.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.