Route reliability record
CLT→MLB
Charlotte to Melbourne
- Flights
- 1,131
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 490 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,131 CLT to MLB flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to MLB: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.1% of the time and Friday flights 85.9%, against 80.4% 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
80.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,100 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.48%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
80.4% on time across 1,131 flights
These figures cover 1,131 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% 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
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to MLB
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 Airlines | 1,131 | 80.4% | 74 min | 2.48% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to MLB
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Melbourne
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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → MLBCharlotte to Melbourne | PSA Airlines | 78.4% | 80.4% | 2.48% | 11am–2pm, Fri | OH 5364 22:30 |
| 2. CLT → MCOCharlotte to Orlando | Frontier Airlines | 69.9% | 71.9% | 2.72% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → MCOCharlotte to Orlando | American Airlines | 69.2% | 70.4% | 1.66% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 1879 20:15 |
| 4. CLT → MCOCharlotte to Orlando | Spirit Airlines | 67.7% | 70.5% | 4.03% | 5am–8am, 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 13 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–11am271 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm143 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm369 flights77.5%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am347 flights75.4%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.1% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 75.4%. 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 369 flights scheduled in it.
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.
September is the best month on the calendar at 92.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 69.7%. 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 48% of the 16,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
48% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 15,955 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.48% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 490 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.7% on time across 1,131 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,131 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 MLB 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 92.7% on time and March 72.3%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,100 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to MLB questions
How often is CLT to MLB 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 19.6% of the 1,131 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to MLB compared with the rest of the country?
80.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to MLB?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.4%, 13 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 March delays on CLT to MLB?
March is the weakest month at 72.3% on time, compared with 92.7% 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
- MLB to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route70.6%
- ATL to MLB, a related route84.2%
- CLT to ATL, a related route83.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record80.4%
- 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 MLB and MLB 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.