Route reliability record
CLT→SLC
Charlotte to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 901
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,727 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 901 CLT to SLC flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 365 at 83.3% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to SLC: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.2%, against 81.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 46 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 889 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.11%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
83.3% on time across 365 flights
These figures cover 901 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to SLC
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 83.3% | 54 min | 1.37% | B |
| American Airlines | 536 | 80.9% | 62 min | 0.93% | B+ |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 83.3%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT to SLC
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 Salt Lake City
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 → SLCCharlotte to Salt Lake City | Delta Air Lines | 82.2% | 83.3% | 1.37% | 5pm–8pm, Wed | DL 2070 17:30 |
| 2. CLT → SLCCharlotte to Salt Lake City | American Airlines | 80.1% | 80.9% | 0.93% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 12 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am183 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm65 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm601 flights81.9%
- 8pm–5am51 flights72.5%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.1% of the time, against 72.5% for the overnight window. That is 12 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 601 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to SLC 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 SLC, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 84.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.5%, a wide gap of 11.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am84.1%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm81.9%
- 8pm–5am72.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
August is the worst month at 65.2% on time, 27 points below January, the best at 91.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.4%, a spread of 20 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 9,494 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,817 of the 9,494 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,494 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 84.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.11% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.1% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,727 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 83.6% on time across 901 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 901 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in SLC after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 901 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 81.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 889 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to SLC questions
How often is CLT to SLC delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.1% of the 901 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to SLC?
Delta Air Lines leads at 83.3% on time across 365 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 80.9%, a gap of 2 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 SLC?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 84.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.5%, 12 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 August delays on CLT to SLC?
August is the weakest month at 65.2% on time, compared with 91.8% in January. Across the year that is 27 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
- SLC to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on CLT to SLC83.3%
- American Airlines on CLT to SLC80.9%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record83.3%
- American Airlines on-time record80.9%
- 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 SLC and SLC 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.