Route reliability record
CLT→PHL
Charlotte to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 3,510
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 449 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in four 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 3,510 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,858 at 79.6% 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.
Key figures
On time
77.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,416 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.56%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
79.6% on time across 2,858 flights
These figures cover 3,510 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 79.6% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 65.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 545 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 82.3% | 75 min | 2.04% | B |
| American Airlines | 2,858 | 79.6% | 75 min | 2.41% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 545 | 65.3% | 90 min | 3.49% | C− |
Frontier Airlines cancels 3.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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 27 points, against 14 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am297 flights93.6%
- 8am–11am666 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm712 flights82.7%
- 2pm–5pm724 flights67.1%
- 5pm–8pm496 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am615 flights69.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.6% of the time, against 67.1% for the afternoon window. That is 27 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 724 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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 67.0% on time, 16 points below May, the best at 83.4%. 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 306 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.6%. 15 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 52% of the 60,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 9%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 60,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 59,884 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 93.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.56%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 449 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 80.6% on time across 3,512 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,510 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. May runs 83.4% on time and July 67.0%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,416 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to PHL questions
How often is CLT to PHL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.4% of the 3,510 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 PHL?
American Airlines leads at 79.6% on time across 2,858 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 65.3%, a gap of 14 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 PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.1%, 27 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 PHL?
July is the weakest month at 67.0% on time, compared with 83.4% in May. Across the year that is 16 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
- PHL to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.3%
- American Airlines on-time record79.6%
- 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 PHL and PHL 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.