Carrier route record

AACLT→MSP

American Airlines · Charlotte to Minneapolis

Flights: 1,264
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 52%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on CLT to MSP 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,264 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to MSP from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,236 completed flights

Avg delay

61 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.90%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

82.7%

Every carrier on CLT to MSP, 2,447 flights

These figures cover 1,264 flights between July 2025 and June 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.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on CLT to MSP

American flew 1,264 of the 2,447 flights on CLT to MSP, most of the route. Its 80.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 85.2% to American at 80.3%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to MSP
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	1,183	85.2%	95 min	1.35%	A
American Airlines (this page)	1,264	80.3%	61 min	1.90%	B

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 21 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–8am133 flights87.7%
8am–11am166 flights89.5%
11am–2pm381 flights86.4%
2pm–5pm234 flights68.3%
5pm–8pm89 flights80.7%
8pm–5am261 flights72.1%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.5% of the time, against 68.3% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 381 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on CLT to MSP through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.April best, July worst

July is the worst month at 68.3% on time, 26 points below April, the best at 94.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.9%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 43% 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.

Carrier
43%
Late-arriving aircraft
39%
National Airspace System
9%
Extreme weather
9%
Security
0%

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 15,000 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 14,750 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,273 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.90% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.32%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.9% 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 930 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 runs 81.6% on time across 1,263 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 1,264 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 MSP

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 94.5% on time and July 68.3%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,236 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures