Route reliability record
CLT→GRR
Charlotte to Grand Rapids
- Flights
- 1,009
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 583 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,009 CLT to GRR flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to GRR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.0%, against 74.8% 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
74.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 994 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
74.8% on time across 1,009 flights
These figures cover 1,009 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to GRR
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 | 1,009 | 74.8% | 73 min | 0.99% | 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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am318 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm17 flights—
- 2pm–5pm269 flights67.9%
- 5pm–8pm84 flights79.8%
- 8pm–5am318 flights69.4%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 67.9% for the afternoon window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 318 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to GRR 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 GRR, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.8% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.9%, a wide gap of 16.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm67.9%
- 5–8pm79.8%
- 8pm–5am69.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
August is the worst month at 64.3% on time, 23 points below March, the best at 86.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.0%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 18,231 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,262 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.50%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 583 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 79.8% on time across 1,008 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,009 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 GRR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,009 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 74.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 994 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to GRR questions
How often is CLT to GRR 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 25.2% of the 1,009 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 GRR compared with the rest of the country?
74.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 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 GRR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.9%, 17 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 August delays on CLT to GRR?
August is the weakest month at 64.3% on time, compared with 86.8% in March. Across the year that is 23 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
- GRR to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to GRR, a related route69.5%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record74.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. CLT to GRR and GRR 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.