Route reliability record
CLT→SYR
Charlotte to Syracuse
- Flights
- 1,089
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 603 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,089 CLT to SYR flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to SYR: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 82.6%, against 73.0% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 43 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,075 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
72.9% on time across 1,075 flights
These figures cover 1,089 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to SYR
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 14 | 84.6% | 39 min | 7.14% | B− |
| American Airlines | 1,075 | 72.9% | 75 min | 1.02% | C |
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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 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am176 flights82.8%
- 11am–2pm222 flights84.8%
- 2pm–5pm332 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm5 flights—
- 8pm–5am354 flights61.6%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.6% on time, against 84.8% for the 11am–2pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 354 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT to SYR 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 SYR, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 84.8% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 61.6%, a wide gap of 23.2 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am82.8%
- 11am–2pm84.8%
- 2–5pm73.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am61.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 33 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.
July is the worst month at 52.2% on time, 33 points below September, the best at 84.7%. 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 110 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 8%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 21,586 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 603 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.9% on time across 1,088 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,089 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 SYR after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,089 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 73.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,075 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to SYR questions
How often is CLT to SYR delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 27.0% of the 1,089 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to SYR compared with the rest of the country?
73.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to SYR?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 84.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.6%, 23 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 SYR?
July is the weakest month at 52.2% on time, compared with 84.7% in September. Across the year that is 33 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
- SYR to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to SYR, a related route74.7%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record84.6%
- American Airlines on-time record72.9%
- 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 SYR and SYR 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.