Route reliability record
CLT→PBI
Charlotte to West Palm Beach
- Flights
- 1,693
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 590 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,693 CLT to PBI flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to PBI: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.9%, against 78.4% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
78.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,663 completed flights
Avg delay
64 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
78.4% on time across 1,693 flights
These figures cover 1,693 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to PBI
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 | 1,693 | 78.4% | 64 min | 1.54% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to West Palm Beach
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → PBICharlotte to West Palm Beach | American Airlines | 77.2% | 78.4% | 1.54% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → FLLCharlotte to Fort Lauderdale | American Airlines | 75.7% | 77.1% | 1.79% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 3. CLT → FLLCharlotte to Fort Lauderdale | Spirit Airlines | 70.5% | 74.7% | 5.60% | 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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am183 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am206 flights89.6%
- 11am–2pm307 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm290 flights73.8%
- 5pm–8pm384 flights77.6%
- 8pm–5am323 flights68.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 68.8% for the overnight 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 384 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to PBI by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On CLT to PBI, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.6% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 68.8%, a wide gap of 20.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am89.6%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm73.8%
- 5–8pm77.6%
- 8pm–5am68.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 63.6% on time, 22 points below October, the best at 85.2%. 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 188 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 22 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 23,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 22,844 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 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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 590 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.3% on time across 1,694 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 1,693 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 PBI 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. October runs 85.2% on time and July 63.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,663 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to PBI questions
How often is CLT to PBI 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 21.6% of the 1,693 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to PBI compared with the rest of the country?
78.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about a point 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 PBI?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.6% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.8%, 21 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 PBI?
July is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 85.2% in October. Across the year that is 22 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
- PBI to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Palm Beach International (PBI) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to PBI, a related route75.8%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record78.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to PBI and PBI 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.