Carrier route record
AACLT→ROC
American Airlines · Charlotte to Rochester
- Flights
- 823
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to ROC sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 823 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CLT to ROC runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 56 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 804 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.8%
Every carrier on CLT to ROC, 998 flights
These figures cover 823 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to ROC
American flew 823 of the 998 flights on CLT to ROC, most of the route. Its 72.0% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 72.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 169 | 87.5% | 45 min | 0.59% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 823 | 72.0% | 83 min | 1.94% | 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 19 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–8am—
- 8am–11am96 flights77.4%
- 11am–2pm85 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm283 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm95 flights73.6%
- 8pm–5am264 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 84.3% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 65.6%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 283 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to ROC through the year
July is the worst month at 56.9% on time, 22 points below November, the best at 78.9%. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 78.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.5%. 14 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 58% of the 19,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 12%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 18,554 reported delay minutes.
58% 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 19,000 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.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.36%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 573 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.8% on time across 823 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 823 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLT to ROC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 823 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 72.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 804 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
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.