Carrier route record
AACLT→IAD
American Airlines · Charlotte to Washington
- Flights
- 441
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 22%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 441 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 497 at 85.4% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to IAD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 435 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.36%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.1%
Every carrier on CLT to IAD, 1,995 flights
These figures cover 441 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 IAD
American flew 441 of the 1,995 flights on CLT to IAD, about 22% of it. Its 75.4% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 96.2% to American at 75.4%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 | 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 (this page) | 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.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 441 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm44 flights77.3%
- 2pm–5pm12 flights—
- 5pm–8pm178 flights75.7%
- 8pm–5am207 flights73.8%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 77.3% on time. The full set of windows spans 4 points.
Across the year
American on CLT to IAD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202527 flights—
- Oct–Dec 2025159 flights74.7%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights82.7%
- Apr–Jun 2026170 flights73.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.4% on time across 441 flights.
Quarter by quarter American on CLT to IAD held fairly steady: 74.7% in Oct–Dec 2025, 82.7% in Jan–Mar 2026 and 73.4% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 9 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.7%. 13 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 52% of the 7,908 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
52% 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 7,908 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 23 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 7,908 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.36% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 85.2% on time across 440 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 441 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. 441 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 75.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 435 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 IAD85.4%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to IAD81.0%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.