Route reliability record
CLT→MKE
Charlotte to Milwaukee
- Flights
- 959
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 651 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 959 CLT to MKE flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to MKE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.9%, against 76.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 941 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
74.9% on time across 752 flights
These figures cover 959 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to MKE
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 207 | 79.8% | 58 min | 1.93% | B |
| American Airlines | 752 | 74.9% | 68 min | 1.33% | C |
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 12 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–8am—
- 8am–11am109 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm186 flights82.3%
- 2pm–5pm288 flights73.1%
- 5pm–8pm21 flights—
- 8pm–5am355 flights72.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.9% of the time, against 72.5% for the overnight window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 355 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 66.3% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 87.6%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 91 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.1%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 15,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
51% 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 15,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 15,010 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.42%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 651 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 79.4% on time across 960 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 959 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MKE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 959 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 941 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to MKE questions
How often is CLT to MKE delayed?
About 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 24.0% of the 959 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to MKE compared with the rest of the country?
76.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to MKE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.5%, 12 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 MKE?
July is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 87.6% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- MKE to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLT to MKE79.8%
- American Airlines on CLT to MKE74.9%
- CLT to MCO, a related route70.6%
- ORD to MKE, a related route64.1%
- CLT to ATL, a related route83.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record79.8%
- American Airlines on-time record74.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to MKE and MKE 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.