Route reliability record
CLT→PHX
Charlotte to Phoenix
- Flights
- 2,881
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,773 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, 3 points 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 2,881 CLT to PHX flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to PHX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 80.0% 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
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,844 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.01%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.0% on time across 2,881 flights
These figures cover 2,881 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to PHX
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 | 2,881 | 80.0% | 67 min | 1.01% | B |
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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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am268 flights84.2%
- 8am–11am517 flights87.9%
- 11am–2pm666 flights85.0%
- 2pm–5pm718 flights75.8%
- 5pm–8pm341 flights71.9%
- 8pm–5am371 flights72.3%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.9% of the time, against 71.9% for the evening window. That is 16 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 718 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to PHX 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 PHX, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.9%, a wide gap of 16.0 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am84.2%
- 8–11am87.9%
- 11am–2pm85.0%
- 2–5pm75.8%
- 5–8pm71.9%
- 8pm–5am72.3%
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 66.4% on time, 22 points below October, the best at 88.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 279 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
49% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 38,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 38,367 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 87.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.01% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.28%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.7% 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.
At 1,773 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.6% on time across 2,879 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,881 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 PHX 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 88.5% on time and July 66.4%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,844 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to PHX questions
How often is CLT to PHX 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 20.0% of the 2,881 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
80.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points 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 PHX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.9%, 16 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 PHX?
July is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 88.5% 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
- PHX to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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 PHX and PHX 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.