Route reliability record
CLT→RIC
Charlotte to Richmond
- Flights
- 2,455
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 257 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,455 CLT to RIC flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 417 at 76.7% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to RIC: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.3%, against 76.1% 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
76.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,406 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.87%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
76.7% on time across 417 flights
These figures cover 2,455 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 RIC
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 31 | 82.8% | 110 min | 6.45% | B− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 57 | 78.4% | 43 min | 10.53% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 417 | 76.7% | 75 min | 1.68% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,950 | 75.8% | 70 min | 1.59% | B |
No carrier stands out. PSA tops the table at 76.7%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to RIC
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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Richmond
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → RICCharlotte to Richmond | PSA Airlines | 75.4% | 76.7% | 1.68% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. CLT → RICCharlotte to Richmond | American Airlines | 74.6% | 75.8% | 1.59% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1882 23:06 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 23 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am216 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am212 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm540 flights80.9%
- 2pm–5pm477 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm412 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am598 flights68.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 68.4% for the evening window. That is 23 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 598 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to RIC 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 RIC, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 68.4%, a wide gap of 22.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.2%
- 8–11am88.9%
- 11am–2pm80.9%
- 2–5pm73.9%
- 5–8pm68.4%
- 8pm–5am68.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 58.1% on time, 25 points below October, the best at 83.5%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 225 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.9%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 40,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 10%Extreme weather
- 9%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 40,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 40,396 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 91.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.87% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 257 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 82.9% on time across 2,456 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 2,455 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 RIC 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 83.5% on time and July 58.1%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,406 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to RIC questions
How often is CLT to RIC 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 23.9% of the 2,455 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to RIC?
PSA Airlines leads at 76.7% on time across 417 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 75.8%, a gap of about a point. 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 RIC?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.4%, 23 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 RIC?
July is the weakest month at 58.1% on time, compared with 83.5% in October. Across the year that is 25 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
- RIC to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLT to RIC76.7%
- American Airlines on CLT to RIC75.8%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ATL to RIC, a related route81.6%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record82.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record78.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record76.7%
- 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 RIC and RIC 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.