Route reliability record
CLT→IAD
Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 1,992
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 322 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. 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 rests on 1,992 CLT to IAD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 454 at 86.6% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.6%, against 79.5% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 86.6% on time across 454 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,937 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.71%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
86.6% on time across 454 flights
These figures cover 1,992 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 IAD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 86.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 537 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 34 | 97.1% | 23 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 454 | 86.6% | 79 min | 2.86% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 967 | 81.5% | 62 min | 3.21% | B− |
| American Airlines | 537 | 68.7% | 85 min | 1.86% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.2% 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.
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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 | 84.1% | 86.6% | 2.86% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | PSA Airlines | 78.9% | 81.5% | 3.21% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 76.3% | 77.8% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. CLT → BWICharlotte to Baltimore | American Airlines | 75.2% | 76.4% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 5. CLT → IADCharlotte to Washington | American Airlines | 67.4% | 68.7% | 1.86% | 11am–2pm, 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 27 points, against 18 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am293 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am335 flights89.5%
- 11am–2pm349 flights83.5%
- 2pm–5pm294 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm423 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am298 flights64.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 92.1% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 423 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to IAD 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 IAD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 64.8%, a wide gap of 27.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am89.5%
- 11am–2pm83.5%
- 2–5pm72.8%
- 5–8pm74.2%
- 8pm–5am64.8%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 34 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 56.9% on time, 34 points below September, the best at 90.7%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 to one. The split is drawn from 29,463 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.71%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
8.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.1% on time across 1,990 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,992 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.7% on time and July 56.9%, a swing of 34 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 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 20.5% of the 1,992 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 86.6% on time across 454 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 18 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 92.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 64.8%, 27 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 IAD?
July is the weakest month at 56.9% on time, compared with 90.7% in September. Across the year that is 34 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 IAD86.6%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to IAD81.5%
- American Airlines on CLT to IAD68.7%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- United Airlines on-time record97.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record86.6%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.5%
- 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.
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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.