Route reliability record
CLT→DFW
Charlotte to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,904
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 935 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,904 CLT to DFW flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to DFW: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.3%, against 77.7% 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
77.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,800 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.3% on time across 3,621 flights
These figures cover 3,904 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to DFW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 3,621 | 78.3% | 69 min | 2.13% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 283 | 70.5% | 82 min | 3.89% | C− |
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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 22 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am686 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am472 flights88.3%
- 11am–2pm822 flights77.2%
- 2pm–5pm692 flights76.3%
- 5pm–8pm570 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am662 flights72.1%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.3% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 822 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to DFW 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 DFW, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 88.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.9%, a wide gap of 22.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am87.4%
- 8–11am88.3%
- 11am–2pm77.2%
- 2–5pm76.3%
- 5–8pm65.9%
- 8pm–5am72.1%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 64.5% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 84.8%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 361 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 59,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 59,120 reported delay minutes.
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.41%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 935 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.3% on time across 3,904 flights, 3 points below 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,904 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 DFW 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. September runs 84.8% on time and July 64.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,800 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to DFW questions
How often is CLT to DFW delayed?
Roughly 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 22.3% of the 3,904 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to DFW compared with the rest of the country?
77.7% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to DFW?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 22 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 DFW?
July is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 84.8% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- DFW to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLT to DFW78.3%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to DFW70.5%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to DFW, a related route70.4%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.5%
- 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 DFW and DFW 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.