Route reliability record
CLT→LGA
Charlotte to New York
- Flights
- 4,193
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 544 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 4,193 CLT to LGA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 923 at 79.8% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 78.6%, against 71.5% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 58 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,980 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.8% on time across 923 flights
These figures cover 4,193 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.8% of the time; American Airlines manages 69.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,767 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 923 | 79.8% | 94 min | 4.88% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 261 | 77.0% | 72 min | 4.98% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,767 | 69.8% | 76 min | 3.79% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 51.6% | 113 min | 9.09% | F− |
Republic Airways cancels 4.9% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to LGA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → EWRCharlotte to Newark | United Airlines | 80.0% | 82.0% | 2.49% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → LGACharlotte to New York | Republic Airways | 75.9% | 79.8% | 4.88% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → EWRCharlotte to Newark | Republic Airways | 75.1% | 81.0% | 7.34% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
| 4. CLT → HPNCharlotte to White Plains | PSA Airlines | 70.8% | 73.1% | 3.12% | 5am–8am, Wed | OH 5431 07:23 |
| 5. CLT → EWRCharlotte to Newark | American Airlines | 69.0% | 71.5% | 3.50% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 2794 20:33 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 32 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am777 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am514 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm843 flights71.3%
- 2pm–5pm852 flights65.1%
- 5pm–8pm768 flights57.7%
- 8pm–5am439 flights63.6%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.7% on time, against 89.4% 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. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 852 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.7%, a wide gap of 31.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am81.0%
- 11am–2pm71.3%
- 2–5pm65.1%
- 5–8pm57.7%
- 8pm–5am63.6%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 60.5% on time, 22 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. October was the busiest month here, with 436 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.1%, a spread of 15 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 93,000 reported delay minutes.
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%National Airspace System
- 25%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 93,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 93,441 reported delay minutes.
34% 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 93,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.41%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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
12.2% 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.
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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.8% on time across 4,197 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 4,193 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.41% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 3,980 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to LGA questions
How often is CLT to LGA delayed?
Roughly 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 28.5% of the 4,193 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 79.8% on time across 923 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 69.8%, a gap of 10 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 89.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.7%, 32 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 60.5% on time, compared with 82.4% in January. Across the year that is 22 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
- LGA to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CLT to LGA79.8%
- Spirit Airlines on CLT to LGA77.0%
- American Airlines on CLT to LGA69.8%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to LGA51.6%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.0%
- American Airlines on-time record69.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.
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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.