Carrier route record
AACLT→ORF
American Airlines · Charlotte to Norfolk
- Flights
- 1,508
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 61%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to ORF lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly 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 1,508 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 ORF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,477 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.59%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on CLT to ORF, 2,468 flights
These figures cover 1,508 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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
American against every carrier on CLT to ORF
American flew 1,508 of the 2,468 flights on CLT to ORF, most of the route. Its 78.1% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 78.1% to Envoy at 40.0%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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) | 1,508 | 78.1% | 71 min | 1.59% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 951 | 71.0% | 70 min | 1.58% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 66.7% | 298 min | 25.00% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 5 | 40.0% | 70 min | 0.00% | F+ |
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 23 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–8am126 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am224 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm438 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm194 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm186 flights67.0%
- 8pm–5am340 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.5% of the time, against 67.0% for the evening window. That is 23 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 438 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to ORF through the year
July is the worst month at 64.0% on time, 22 points below November, the best at 86.0%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 158 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.1%. 15 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 23,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 4%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
58% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 22,967 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 89.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.59% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.46%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.3% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 290 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 84.5% on time across 1,508 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 1,508 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 ORF
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 86.0% on time and July 64.0%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,477 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to ORF, every carrier
- American on ORF to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to ORF71.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.