Route reliability record

CLT→MYR

Charlotte to Myrtle Beach

Flights: 2,276
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 157 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrive 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 2,276 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 842 at 80.5% on time.

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.

On time

77.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,232 completed flights

Avg delay

69 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.80%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

PSA

80.5% on time across 842 flights

These figures cover 2,276 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 MYR

The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to MYR
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	57	88.7%	59 min	7.02%	A−
PSA Airlines	842	80.5%	61 min	2.61%	B
American Airlines	1,377	75.9%	73 min	1.09%	B

No carrier stands out. PSA tops the table at 80.5%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 19 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am157 flights90.3%
8am–11am354 flights87.2%
11am–2pm428 flights81.0%
2pm–5pm432 flights71.0%
5pm–8pm331 flights73.0%
8pm–5am574 flights74.5%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.3% of the time, against 71.0% for the afternoon window. That is 19 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 574 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 17 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.

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

July is the worst month at 68.4% on time, 17 points below January, the best at 85.6%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 232 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%. 14 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 34,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
51%
Carrier
37%
National Airspace System
8%
Extreme weather
4%

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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 34,024 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, 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 13,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.80% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

8.9% 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 are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 157 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.2% on time across 2,277 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,276 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 85.6% on time and July 68.4%, a swing of 17 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,232 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

CLT to MYR questions

How often is CLT to MYR delayed?

Roughly one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.1% of the 2,276 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to MYR?

PSA Airlines leads at 80.5% on time across 842 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.9%, a gap of 5 points. 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 MYR?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.3% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 71.0%, 19 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 MYR?

July is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 85.6% in January. Across the year that is 17 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. CLT to MYR and MYR to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures