Carrier route record
AACLT→DTW
American Airlines · Charlotte to Detroit
- Flights
- 2,074
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- 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 DTW 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 2,074 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,034 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.2%
Every carrier on CLT to DTW, 3,535 flights
These figures cover 2,074 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 DTW
American flew 2,074 of the 3,535 flights on CLT to DTW, most of the route. Its 78.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Spirit at 73.8%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,344 | 88.1% | 84 min | 1.34% | A |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,074 | 78.9% | 71 min | 1.78% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 75.9% | 70 min | 3.33% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 86 | 73.8% | 74 min | 2.33% | 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–8am193 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am392 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm377 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm224 flights79.3%
- 5pm–8pm251 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am637 flights68.9%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 68.9% for the overnight 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 637 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to DTW through the year
July is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 21 points below May, the best at 86.6%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 193 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%. 18 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 51% of the 31,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 30,642 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 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 500 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 2,073 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,074 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 DTW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 86.6% on time and July 66.1%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,034 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to DTW, every carrier
- American on DTW to CLT, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on CLT to DTW88.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) 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.