Carrier route record
AACMH→CLT
American Airlines · Columbus to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,160
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 57%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CMH to CLT earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,160 flights, with a median arrival 14 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's CMH to CLT record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 100 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,135 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.16%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
84.6%
Every carrier on CMH to CLT, 2,028 flights
These figures cover 1,160 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 CMH to CLT
American flew 1,160 of the 2,028 flights on CMH to CLT, most of the route. Its 87.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 84.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 94.2% to PSA at 79.4%. 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 | 69 | 94.2% | 95 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,160 | 87.6% | 82 min | 2.16% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 799 | 79.4% | 82 min | 2.00% | 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 25 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–8am528 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am314 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm166 flights81.9%
- 2pm–5pm37 flights96.9%
- 5pm–8pm83 flights88.6%
- 8pm–5am32 flights71.9%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 96.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 71.9%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 528 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CMH to CLT through the year
February is the weak month at 80.2% on time, against 95.5% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. March was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 94.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.6%. 15 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. Carrier accounts for 52% of the 12,000 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.
- 52%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, 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 5,937 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 11,502 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.16% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.9% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 347 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 1,162 flights, 12 points below 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,160 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 American on CMH to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 95.5% on time and February 80.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,135 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to CMH, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CMH to CLT79.4%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) 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.