Route reliability record
CLT→DSM
Charlotte to Des Moines
- Flights
- 809
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 815 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 809 CLT to DSM flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to DSM: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.1%, against 73.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 41 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 784 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
72.3% on time across 621 flights
These figures cover 809 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to DSM
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 188 | 77.4% | 74 min | 5.85% | B− |
| American Airlines | 621 | 72.3% | 70 min | 1.93% | C |
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 23 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–8am—
- 8am–11am46 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm199 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm207 flights78.5%
- 5pm–8pm26 flights—
- 8pm–5am331 flights68.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.3% of the time, against 68.2% for the overnight window. That is 23 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 331 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 58.3% on time, 29 points below October, the best at 86.9%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.0%. 15 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 15,000 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
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 14,721 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 5,157 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.84%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.3% 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 815 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 83.3% on time across 809 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 809 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DSM after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.84% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 784 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to DSM questions
How often is CLT to DSM delayed?
About 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 26.5% of the 809 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to DSM compared with the rest of the country?
73.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to DSM?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.2%, 23 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 DSM?
July is the weakest month at 58.3% on time, compared with 86.9% in October. Across the year that is 29 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
- DSM to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLT to DSM77.4%
- American Airlines on CLT to DSM72.3%
- CLT to MCO, a related route70.6%
- ORD to DSM, a related route71.0%
- CLT to ATL, a related route83.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.4%
- American Airlines on-time record72.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to DSM and DSM to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CLT to DSM’s on-time badge on your site
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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.