Carrier route record
AACLT→FLL
American Airlines · Charlotte to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 2,106
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 70%
- 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 FLL lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,106 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 FLL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,063 completed flights
Avg delay
61 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.5%
Every carrier on CLT to FLL, 3,014 flights
These figures cover 2,106 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 FLL
American flew 2,106 of the 3,014 flights on CLT to FLL, most of the route. Its 76.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 76.3% to Frontier at 66.5%. One 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 Airlines | 746 | 76.3% | 62 min | 4.83% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,106 | 76.0% | 61 min | 1.85% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 162 | 66.5% | 68 min | 3.70% | 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 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–8am234 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am332 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm410 flights73.4%
- 2pm–5pm390 flights68.3%
- 5pm–8pm218 flights71.8%
- 8pm–5am522 flights69.2%
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 68.3% for the afternoon 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 522 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to FLL through the year
July is the worst month at 54.9% on time, 33 points below January, the best at 87.7%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 205 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.9%. 17 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 53% of the 30,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
53% 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 30,000 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 30,151 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 632 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 82.3% on time across 2,105 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 2,106 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 FLL
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 87.7% on time and July 54.9%, a swing of 33 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,063 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to FLL, every carrier
- American on FLL to CLT, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on CLT to FLL76.3%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to FLL66.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) 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.