Carrier route record
AADCA→CLT
American Airlines · Washington to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,443
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 91%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DCA to CLT lands a B−, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 2,443 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,361 completed flights
Avg delay
124 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.19%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
78.5%
Every carrier on DCA to CLT, 2,677 flights
These figures cover 2,443 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DCA to CLT
American flew 2,443 of the 2,677 flights on DCA to CLT, most of the route. Its 79.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 78.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.8% to PSA at 65.9%. 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) | 2,443 | 79.8% | 124 min | 3.19% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 234 | 65.9% | 88 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am705 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am563 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm359 flights76.4%
- 2pm–5pm164 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm618 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am34 flights61.8%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.8% on time, against 92.3% 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 705 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DCA to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 71.4% on time, 15 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 86.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 76.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DCA to CLT runs when it is late
American on DCA to CLT often beats the schedule: 987 of 2,361 completed flights, 42%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 478 late arrivals split 121 under half an hour, 124 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 233 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early987 flights41.8%
- Within 15 min896 flights38.0%
- 15–29 min late121 flights5.1%
- 30–59 min late124 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late115 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late118 flights5.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,361 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
112 of 517 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. 73 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DCA to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 September 2025, 26 hours 2 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 September 2025 | 26 hours 2 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 June 2026 | 23 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 29 August 2026 | 19 hours 57 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 October 2025 | 18 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 October 2025 | 16 hours 17 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 59,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 59,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 59,206 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 92.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.19%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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
9.9% 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.
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 66.9% on time across 2,444 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 2,443 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 3.19% 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. 2,361 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 CLT65.9%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.