Carrier route record
AACLT→MEM
American Airlines · Charlotte to Memphis
- Flights
- 1,358
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to MEM 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 1,358 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to MEM from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,336 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.55%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.8%
Every carrier on CLT to MEM, 1,737 flights
These figures cover 1,358 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to MEM
American flew 1,358 of the 1,737 flights on CLT to MEM, most of the route. Its 75.7% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 75.7% to PSA at 66.7%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,358 | 75.7% | 68 min | 1.55% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 379 | 66.7% | 61 min | 3.96% | C− |
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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 29 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am117 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am214 flights89.0%
- 11am–2pm160 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm148 flights86.7%
- 5pm–8pm381 flights71.1%
- 8pm–5am338 flights64.6%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.6% on time, against 93.2% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 381 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to MEM through the year
August is the worst month at 65.7% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 88.1%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CLT to MEM runs when it is late
The 324 late arrivals split 104 under half an hour, 94 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 126 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early317 flights23.7%
- Within 15 min695 flights52.0%
- 15–29 min late104 flights7.8%
- 30–59 min late94 flights7.0%
- 1–2 hours late83 flights6.2%
- 2+ hours late43 flights3.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,336 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
56 of 334 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. 46 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CLT to MEM
The latest arrival of the period was on 26 August 2026, 9 hours 44 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage).
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 26 August 2026 | 9 hours 44 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 October 2025 | 8 hours 36 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 July 2026 | 6 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 September 2025 | 6 hours 30 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 December 2025 | 6 hours 10 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 21,861 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 93.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.55% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.4% 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 511 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 85.8% on time across 1,358 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,358 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 MEM
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 88.1% on time and August 65.7%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,336 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to MEM, every carrier
- American on MEM to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to MEM66.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Memphis International (MEM) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.