Carrier route record
AACLT→PHL
American Airlines · Charlotte to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 2,858
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 81%
- 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 PHL lands a B, 2 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,858 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 PHL from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,786 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.41%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on CLT to PHL, 3,510 flights
These figures cover 2,858 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 PHL
American flew 2,858 of the 3,510 flights on CLT to PHL, most of the route. Its 79.6% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Frontier at 65.3%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 98 | 82.3% | 75 min | 2.04% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,858 | 79.6% | 75 min | 2.41% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 545 | 65.3% | 90 min | 3.49% | C− |
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 22 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–8am273 flights93.8%
- 8am–11am581 flights87.8%
- 11am–2pm576 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm559 flights71.7%
- 5pm–8pm440 flights72.1%
- 8pm–5am429 flights72.5%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 71.7% for the afternoon window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 581 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to PHL through the year
December is the weak month at 72.8% on time, against 84.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. January was the busiest month here, with 248 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%. 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 50% of the 42,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 42,308 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 93.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.41% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.6% 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 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 runs 82.3% on time across 2,864 flights, within 3 points 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 2,858 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 PHL
Put together: take the 5am–8am departure, avoid December if the dates are flexible, and if two carriers are within a few dollars of each other, Frontier is the one with the record behind it. None of that guarantees an on-time arrival; it moves the odds by 22 points, which is the most any booking decision can do. 2,786 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to PHL, every carrier
- American on PHL to CLT, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on CLT to PHL65.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) 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.