Carrier route record
AACLT→ILM
American Airlines · Charlotte to Wilmington
- Flights
- 1,513
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to ILM lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 1,513 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to ILM from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,483 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.92%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on CLT to ILM, 1,840 flights
These figures cover 1,513 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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 ILM
American flew 1,513 of the 1,840 flights on CLT to ILM, most of the route. Its 78.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 80.1% to Envoy at 0.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 326 | 80.1% | 75 min | 1.53% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,513 | 78.0% | 68 min | 1.92% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 75 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am127 flights85.7%
- 8am–11am109 flights88.0%
- 11am–2pm304 flights85.4%
- 2pm–5pm105 flights71.3%
- 5pm–8pm311 flights77.1%
- 8pm–5am557 flights71.8%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.0% of the time, against 71.3% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 557 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to ILM through the year
July is the worst month at 67.8% on time, 17 points below April, the best at 85.0%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 167 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.5%. 18 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 55% of the 22,000 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.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
55% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 22,316 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.92% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.6% 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 185 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 88.3% on time across 1,513 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,513 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLT to ILM
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 85.0% on time and July 67.8%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,483 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to ILM, every carrier
- American on ILM to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to ILM80.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.