Route reliability record

CLT→LGA

Charlotte to New York

Flights: 4,391
Period: June 2025 to May 2026
Distance: 544 mi
Carriers: 4

This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,391 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 972 at 81.6% on time.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.4%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,201 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.85%

National rate is 1.80%

Best carrier

Republic

81.6% on time across 972 flights

These figures cover 4,391 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% 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

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LGA

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 81.6% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,824 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to LGA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	972	81.6%	82 min	4.01%	B−
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	360	80.1%	72 min	3.61%	B−
American Airlines	2,824	67.9%	78 min	3.90%	C−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	235	65.4%	97 min	2.98%	C

Republic Airways cancels 4.0% 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

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 29 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am778 flights88.8%
8am–11am649 flights80.7%
11am–2pm917 flights71.9%
2pm–5pm975 flights63.7%
5pm–8pm634 flights59.7%
8pm–5am438 flights62.5%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 59.7% on time, against 88.8% for the 5am–8am 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.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 23 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.January best, July worst

July is the worst month at 59.4% on time, 23 points below January, the best at 82.4%. 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.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 76.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.8%. 10 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

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 94,000 reported delay minutes.

Late-arriving aircraft
34%
National Airspace System
33%
Carrier
24%
Extreme weather
8%
Security
0%

33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 31,000 minutes out of 94,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.8% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.85%, against 1.80% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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 actually costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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 544 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 77.1% on time across 4,395 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 4,391 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 this route

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.85% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic.

Common questions

CLT to LGA questions

How often is CLT to LGA delayed?

Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.2% of the 4,391 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LGA?

Republic Airways leads at 81.6% on time across 972 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 14 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.

What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to LGA?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 59.7%, 29 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 LGA?

July is the weakest month at 59.4% on time, compared with 82.4% in January. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. CLT to LGA and LGA to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures