Route reliability record
CLT→PIT
Charlotte to Pittsburgh
- Flights
- 1,980
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 366 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,980 CLT to PIT flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to PIT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.4%, against 75.8% 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,943 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.72%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
77.5% on time across 1,760 flights
These figures cover 1,980 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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 PIT
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 | 1,760 | 77.5% | 67 min | 1.25% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 220 | 61.8% | 65 min | 5.45% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to PIT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am109 flights89.0%
- 8am–11am255 flights88.4%
- 11am–2pm433 flights79.1%
- 2pm–5pm264 flights68.6%
- 5pm–8pm456 flights71.7%
- 8pm–5am463 flights70.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.0% of the time, against 68.6% for the afternoon window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 463 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to PIT 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 PIT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 68.6%, a wide gap of 20.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.0%
- 8–11am88.4%
- 11am–2pm79.1%
- 2–5pm68.6%
- 5–8pm71.7%
- 8pm–5am70.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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.
August is the worst month at 62.8% on time, 20 points below November, the best at 83.2%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 194 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.8%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. The split is drawn from 31,189 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 31,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.72% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.5% 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 366 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 82.5% on time across 1,981 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,980 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 PIT 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. November runs 83.2% on time and August 62.8%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,943 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to PIT questions
How often is CLT to PIT delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.2% of the 1,980 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to PIT compared with the rest of the country?
75.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to PIT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 68.6%, 20 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 August delays on CLT to PIT?
August is the weakest month at 62.8% on time, compared with 83.2% in November. Across the year that is 20 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
- PIT to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Pittsburgh International (PIT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLT to PIT77.5%
- PSA Airlines on CLT to PIT61.8%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to PIT, a related route73.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- American Airlines on-time record77.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record61.8%
- 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 PIT and PIT 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.