Route reliability record
CLT→LEX
Charlotte to Lexington
- Flights
- 1,359
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 281 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,359 CLT to LEX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to LEX: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.9%, against 75.5% 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
75.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,319 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.35%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
75.5% on time across 1,359 flights
These figures cover 1,359 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LEX
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 Airlines | 1,359 | 75.5% | 67 min | 2.35% | 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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am65 flights87.5%
- 8am–11am287 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm181 flights88.8%
- 2pm–5pm269 flights71.1%
- 5pm–8pm195 flights63.0%
- 8pm–5am362 flights67.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.0% on time, against 88.8% for the 11am–2pm 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 362 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to LEX 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 LEX, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 88.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.0%, a wide gap of 25.8 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am87.5%
- 8–11am86.9%
- 11am–2pm88.8%
- 2–5pm71.1%
- 5–8pm63.0%
- 8pm–5am67.7%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 55.9% on time, 32 points below October, the best at 88.2%. 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 152 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.7%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 21,482 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.35% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.59%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.5% 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 281 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 82.9% on time across 1,360 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,359 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 LEX 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 88.2% on time and July 55.9%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,319 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to LEX questions
How often is CLT to LEX delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.5% of the 1,359 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to LEX compared with the rest of the country?
75.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to LEX?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.0%, 26 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 LEX?
July is the weakest month at 55.9% on time, compared with 88.2% in October. Across the year that is 32 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
- LEX to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to LEX, a related route84.0%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. CLT to LEX and LEX 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.