Carrier route record
AADCA→CLT
American Airlines · Washington to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 89%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to CLT lands a B−, 2 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 close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,382 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on DCA to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,306 completed flights
Avg delay
120 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.02%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on DCA to CLT, 2,677 flights
These figures cover 2,382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% 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 DCA to CLT
American flew 2,382 of the 2,677 flights on DCA to CLT, most of the route. Its 80.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.0% to PSA at 66.7%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,382 | 80.0% | 120 min | 3.02% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 295 | 66.7% | 82 min | 2.37% | C |
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 29 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–8am700 flights91.0%
- 8am–11am562 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm365 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm165 flights70.2%
- 5pm–8pm556 flights69.6%
- 8pm–5am34 flights61.8%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 91.0% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 700 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 72.5% on time, 14 points below April, the best at 86.6%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 75.2%. 11 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 58% of the 55,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
58% 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 55,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 55,273 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.02%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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. 9.2% 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 331 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 67.2% on time across 2,384 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,382 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 DCA to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.02% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 2,306 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to DCA, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CLT66.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.