Carrier route record
AACLT→IAD
American Airlines · Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 537
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 27%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to IAD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 537 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 454 at 86.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on CLT to IAD runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 86 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 527 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.5%
Every carrier on CLT to IAD, 1,992 flights
These figures cover 537 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to IAD
American flew 537 of the 1,992 flights on CLT to IAD, about 27% of it. Its 68.7% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 97.1% to American at 68.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| 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 (this page) | 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 10 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm44 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm13 flights—
- 5pm–8pm233 flights67.7%
- 8pm–5am247 flights67.2%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 77.3% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 67.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 247 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to IAD through the year
July is the worst month at 37.5% on time, 47 points below April, the best at 84.3%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 82 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 63.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CLT to IAD runs when it is late
The 165 late arrivals split 51 under half an hour, 49 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early120 flights22.8%
- Within 15 min242 flights45.9%
- 15–29 min late51 flights9.7%
- 30–59 min late49 flights9.3%
- 1–2 hours late36 flights6.8%
- 2+ hours late29 flights5.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 527 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 166 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 19 made it up before arrival. 18 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CLT to IAD
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 August 2026, 10 hours 39 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. Three of the five worst days fell in August 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 August 2026 | 10 hours 39 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 6 August 2026 | 9 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 7 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 30 June 2026 | 7 hours 38 minutes | Carrier |
| 15 August 2026 | 7 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 14,053 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,781 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.86% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
12.3% 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.
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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.0% on time across 536 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 537 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLT to IAD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 537 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 68.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 527 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to IAD, every carrier
- American on IAD to CLT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLT to IAD86.6%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to IAD81.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.