Route reliability record
CLT→IAD
Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 1,995
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 322 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 4 points 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 1,995 CLT to IAD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 497 at 85.4% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.2%, against 81.1% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.4% on time across 497 flights.
Key figures
On time
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,937 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.86%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
85.4% on time across 497 flights
These figures cover 1,995 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to IAD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 85.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 75.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 441 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 96.2% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 497 | 85.4% | 81 min | 3.22% | A− |
| PSA Airlines | 1,031 | 81.0% | 64 min | 3.39% | B− |
| American Airlines | 441 | 75.4% | 74 min | 1.36% | B |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Washington
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | Republic Airways | 82.7% | 85.4% | 3.22% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | PSA Airlines | 78.3% | 81.0% | 3.39% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 77.0% | 78.3% | 1.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | American Airlines | 74.4% | 75.4% | 1.36% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | American Airlines | 74.1% | 75.4% | 1.77% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 20 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am299 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am329 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm334 flights85.6%
- 2pm–5pm332 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm441 flights75.9%
- 8pm–5am260 flights71.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 71.3% for the overnight window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 441 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
December is the weak month at 68.4% on time, against 90.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.4%. 9 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 48% of the 26,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
48% 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 26,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 25,657 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.86%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
7.4% 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.
At 322 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 83.7% on time across 1,994 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,995 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in IAD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 2.86% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,937 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to IAD questions
How often is CLT to IAD delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.9% of the 1,995 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to IAD?
Republic Airways leads at 85.4% on time across 497 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.4%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.3%, 20 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 December delays on CLT to IAD?
December is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 90.7% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- IAD to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CLT to IAD85.4%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to IAD81.0%
- American Airlines on CLT to IAD75.4%
- CLT to MCO, a related route70.6%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.5%
- CLT to ATL, a related route83.3%
- United Airlines on-time record96.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to IAD and IAD to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CLT to IAD’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.