Carrier route record
AACLT→DFW
American Airlines · Charlotte to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 3,600
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- 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 DFW lands a B, about a point 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,600 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to DFW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,493 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.4%
Every carrier on CLT to DFW, 3,881 flights
These figures cover 3,600 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to DFW
American flew 3,600 of the 3,881 flights on CLT to DFW, most of the route. Its 78.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 87.2% to Frontier at 74.2%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 87.2% | 104 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 3,600 | 78.6% | 69 min | 2.53% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 74.2% | 82 min | 3.31% | 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 24 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–8am646 flights87.7%
- 8am–11am443 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm754 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm705 flights75.3%
- 5pm–8pm425 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am627 flights72.6%
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 89.7% of the time, against 65.6% for the evening window. That is 24 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 754 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to DFW through the year
August is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 17 points below September, the best at 86.0%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 321 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.1%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 52,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 24%National Airspace System
- 13%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 52,015 reported delay minutes.
37% 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 52,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.5% 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 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. 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 73.4% on time across 3,600 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,600 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 DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.0% on time and August 69.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 3,493 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to DFW, every carrier
- American on DFW to CLT, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to DFW74.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.