Carrier route record
AACLT→LGA
American Airlines · Charlotte to New York
- Flights
- 2,802
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to LGA carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% 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 2,802 flights, with a median arrival 1 minute early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CLT to LGA runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 87 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,674 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.78%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.1%
Every carrier on CLT to LGA, 4,332 flights
These figures cover 2,802 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.1% 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 LGA
American flew 2,802 of the 4,332 flights on CLT to LGA, most of the route. Its 68.9% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.4% to Frontier at 61.8%. Two 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 Airways | 964 | 81.4% | 81 min | 4.15% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 331 | 79.2% | 72 min | 3.93% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,802 | 68.9% | 76 min | 3.78% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 61.8% | 102 min | 4.26% | D− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CLT to LGA
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–8am335 flights88.9%
- 8am–11am451 flights81.8%
- 11am–2pm607 flights69.2%
- 2pm–5pm587 flights58.7%
- 5pm–8pm439 flights57.0%
- 8pm–5am383 flights63.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.0% on time, against 88.9% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 607 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to LGA through the year
July is the worst month at 45.7% on time, 38 points below January, the best at 83.8%. 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 268 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 73.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.1%. 12 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 64,000 reported delay minutes.
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%National Airspace System
- 20%Carrier
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
39% 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 64,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 63,572 reported delay minutes.
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 88.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.78%, against 1.81% 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 costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.1% 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 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 78.0% on time across 2,804 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,802 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 LGA
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.78% 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. 2,674 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to LGA, every carrier
- American on LGA to CLT, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLT to LGA81.4%
- Spirit Airlines on CLT to LGA79.2%
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to LGA61.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) 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.