Carrier route record
AACLT→JFK
American Airlines · Charlotte to New York
- Flights
- 1,837
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 90%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to JFK sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 8 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,837 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CLT to JFK runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 84 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,785 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
70.2%
Every carrier on CLT to JFK, 2,032 flights
These figures cover 1,837 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.5% 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 JFK
American flew 1,837 of the 2,032 flights on CLT to JFK, most of the route. Its 69.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 79.9% to American at 69.2%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 195 | 79.9% | 79 min | 4.62% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,837 | 69.2% | 80 min | 2.61% | C |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CLT to JFK
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 32 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–8am—
- 8am–11am462 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm404 flights69.6%
- 2pm–5pm224 flights69.4%
- 5pm–8pm460 flights56.2%
- 8pm–5am287 flights58.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 56.2% on time, against 87.7% for the 8am–11am 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 462 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to JFK through the year
July is the worst month at 57.7% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 79.3%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 187 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 59.2%. 19 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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 44,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 24%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% 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 44,000 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 43,805 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 87.7% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.5% 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.
The 542 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.3% on time across 1,833 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,837 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 JFK
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 79.3% on time and July 57.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to JFK, every carrier
- American on JFK to CLT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLT to JFK79.9%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.