Carrier route record
AACLT→SDF
American Airlines · Charlotte to Louisville
- Flights
- 976
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 56%
- 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 SDF 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 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 976 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 SDF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 950 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.3%
Every carrier on CLT to SDF, 1,754 flights
These figures cover 976 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 SDF
American flew 976 of the 1,754 flights on CLT to SDF, most of the route. Its 75.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 85.7% to American at 75.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 50 | 85.7% | 47 min | 2.00% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 728 | 77.3% | 62 min | 1.24% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 976 | 75.2% | 87 min | 2.66% | B |
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–8am37 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am85 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm84 flights74.4%
- 2pm–5pm87 flights83.3%
- 5pm–8pm186 flights69.8%
- 8pm–5am497 flights72.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.2% of the time, against 69.8% for the evening window. That is 19 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 497 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to SDF through the year
July is the worst month at 51.7% on time, 36 points below October, the best at 87.2%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 62.0%. 23 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 45% of the 20,000 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
45% 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 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 20,455 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 8,008 of the 20,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.66%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
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. 10.1% 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 335 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 83.9% on time across 978 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. 976 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 SDF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 976 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 75.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 950 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.