Route reliability record

CLT→SAV

Charlotte to Savannah

Flights: 2,074
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 213 mi
Carriers: 3

This route lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,074 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 1,450 at 78.4% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

76.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,040 completed flights

Avg delay

72 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.54%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

PSA

78.4% on time across 1,450 flights

These figures cover 2,074 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.8% 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

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to SAV

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 78.4% of the time; American Airlines manages 70.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 596 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on CLT to SAV
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	28	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
PSA Airlines	1,450	78.4%	69 min	2.07%	B
American Airlines	596	70.7%	78 min	0.34%	C+

PSA leads American by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 25 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am35 flights94.3%
8am–11am238 flights88.0%
11am–2pm457 flights83.1%
2pm–5pm242 flights71.0%
5pm–8pm411 flights69.0%
8pm–5am691 flights73.5%

Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.3% of the time, against 69.0% for the evening window. That is 25 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 691 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 24 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.

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

July is the worst month at 62.4% on time, 24 points below November, the best at 85.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 235 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 71.8%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 35,000 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
54%
Carrier
30%
National Airspace System
10%
Extreme weather
5%

54% 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 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 34,748 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 94.3% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.54% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.8% 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.

At 213 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 85.4% on time across 2,070 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,074 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. November runs 85.9% on time and July 62.4%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,040 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

CLT to SAV questions

How often is CLT to SAV delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.5% of the 2,074 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on CLT to SAV?

PSA Airlines leads at 78.4% on time across 1,450 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 70.7%, a gap of 8 points. 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 SAV?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.0%, 25 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 SAV?

July is the weakest month at 62.4% on time, compared with 85.9% in November. Across the year that is 24 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. CLT to SAV and SAV to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures