Route reliability record
CLT→LAX
Charlotte to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 2,276
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,125 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 about an hour on average. That rests on 2,276 CLT to LAX flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to LAX: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.1%, against 78.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,254 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.92%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.8% on time across 2,276 flights
These figures cover 2,276 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LAX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,276 | 78.8% | 59 min | 0.92% | B+ |
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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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am283 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am336 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm497 flights85.9%
- 2pm–5pm431 flights75.0%
- 5pm–8pm391 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am338 flights73.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 85.9% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 68.4%. 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 497 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to LAX 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 LAX, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 85.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.4%, a wide gap of 17.5 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am85.1%
- 8–11am85.6%
- 11am–2pm85.9%
- 2–5pm75.0%
- 5–8pm68.4%
- 8pm–5am73.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 71.6% on time, 18 points below October, the best at 89.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 213 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.7%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 28,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 27,898 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.92% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.04%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,125 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.9% on time across 2,279 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 2,276 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 LAX 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. October runs 89.9% on time and July 71.6%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,254 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to LAX questions
How often is CLT to LAX 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 21.2% of the 2,276 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to LAX compared with the rest of the country?
78.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to LAX?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 85.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 18 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 LAX?
July is the weakest month at 71.6% on time, compared with 89.9% in October. Across the year that is 18 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
- LAX to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to LAX and LAX 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.