Carrier route record

AACLT→PIT

American Airlines · Charlotte to Pittsburgh

Flights: 1,773
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 92%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on CLT to PIT lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,773 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 PIT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

77.8%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,750 completed flights

Avg delay

63 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.24%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.1%

Every carrier on CLT to PIT, 1,932 flights

These figures cover 1,773 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 PIT

American flew 1,773 of the 1,932 flights on CLT to PIT, most of the route. Its 77.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 77.8% to PSA at 69.3%. One 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.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to PIT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	1,773	77.8%	63 min	1.24%	B
PSA Airlinesthin sample	159	69.3%	58 min	5.66%	C−

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on CLT to PIT

AA 196223:0171.0% · 355 flights

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 20 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–8am104 flights88.5%
8am–11am238 flights89.3%
11am–2pm301 flights86.4%
2pm–5pm306 flights69.5%
5pm–8pm359 flights76.8%
8pm–5am465 flights70.0%

Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.3% of the time, against 69.5% 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 465 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on CLT to PIT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.November best, July worst

July is the worst month at 71.2% on time, 12 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. May was the busiest month here, with 175 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 71.4%. 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 56% of the 25,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
56%
Carrier
35%
National Airspace System
5%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

56% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 24,661 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 8,528 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.9% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.0% on time across 1,774 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 1,773 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 PIT

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 83.2% on time and July 71.2%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,750 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures