Route reliability record
CLT→LIT
Charlotte to Little Rock
- Flights
- 1,263
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 640 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,263 CLT to LIT flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 427 at 81.8% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to LIT: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.8%, against 80.5% 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,228 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.53%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
81.8% on time across 427 flights
These figures cover 1,263 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 LIT
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 85.4% | 32 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 427 | 81.8% | 62 min | 4.68% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 654 | 80.7% | 62 min | 1.22% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 141 | 74.3% | 136 min | 2.84% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.7% 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 LIT
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 Little Rock
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → LITCharlotte to Little Rock | Envoy Air | 79.7% | 80.7% | 1.22% | 11am–2pm, Wed | MQ 3692 20:25 |
| 2. CLT → LITCharlotte to Little Rock | PSA Airlines | 78.0% | 81.8% | 4.68% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 15 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am108 flights72.8%
- 8am–11am179 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm207 flights87.6%
- 2pm–5pm322 flights81.3%
- 5pm–8pm94 flights73.4%
- 8pm–5am353 flights77.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 87.6% on time, ahead of 5am–8am at 72.8%. 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 353 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to LIT 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 LIT, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5am–8am at 72.8%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am72.8%
- 8–11am86.4%
- 11am–2pm87.6%
- 2–5pm81.3%
- 5–8pm73.4%
- 8pm–5am77.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 68.0% on time, 20 points below September, 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. June was the busiest month here, with 133 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 17,200 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 2.53%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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
7.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 640 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 84.2% on time across 1,262 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 1,263 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 LIT 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. September runs 88.2% on time and August 68.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,228 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to LIT questions
How often is CLT to LIT 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 19.5% of the 1,263 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to LIT?
PSA Airlines leads at 81.8% on time across 427 flights. Envoy Air is at the other end on 80.7%, a gap of about a point. 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 LIT?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5am–8am window is the weakest at 72.8%, 15 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 August delays on CLT to LIT?
August is the weakest month at 68.0% on time, compared with 88.2% in September. Across the year that is 20 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
- LIT to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLT to LIT81.8%
- Envoy Air on CLT to LIT80.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on CLT to LIT74.3%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- DFW to LIT, a related route78.2%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record85.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record80.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLT to LIT and LIT 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.