Carrier route record
AACLT→SLC
American Airlines · Charlotte to Salt Lake City
- Flights
- 556
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 60%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to SLC lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to SLC from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 550 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.90%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.4%
Every carrier on CLT to SLC, 921 flights
These figures cover 556 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to SLC
American flew 556 of the 921 flights on CLT to SLC, most of the route. Its 80.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 83.4% to American at 80.2%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 365 | 83.4% | 56 min | 1.10% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 556 | 80.2% | 55 min | 0.90% | 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–8am—
- 8am–11am180 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm65 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm206 flights83.2%
- 8pm–5am105 flights65.4%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.4% of the time, against 65.4% for the overnight 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 206 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to SLC through the year
August is the worst month at 67.3% on time, 26 points below March, the best at 93.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 5,968 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
36% 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 5,968 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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 5,968 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 2,053 of the 5,968 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.90% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 55 minutes, 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 82.5% on time across 556 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. 556 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 SLC
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 556 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 80.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 550 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to SLC, every carrier
- American on SLC to CLT, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on CLT to SLC83.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Salt Lake City International (SLC) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.