Route reliability record
DEN→CLT
Denver to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,781
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,337 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,781 DEN to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,724 at 84.5% on time.
Best time to fly DEN to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.1%, against 82.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 52 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,742 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.26%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
84.5% on time across 1,724 flights
These figures cover 2,781 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,724 | 84.5% | 82 min | 1.28% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 223 | 82.7% | 61 min | 1.35% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 80.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 674 | 78.7% | 61 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 140 | 76.3% | 39 min | 3.57% | B− |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 84.5%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DEN to CLT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Denver to Charlotte
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DEN → CLTDenver to Charlotte | American Airlines | 83.4% | 84.5% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. DEN → CLTDenver to Charlotte | United Airlines | 78.1% | 78.7% | 0.74% | 8am–11am, Tue | UA 616 17:45 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am403 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am741 flights85.3%
- 11am–2pm485 flights84.7%
- 2pm–5pm471 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm362 flights71.2%
- 8pm–5am319 flights85.2%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 71.2% for the evening window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 741 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DEN to CLT 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 DEN to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.2%, a wide gap of 21.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.6%
- 8–11am85.3%
- 11am–2pm84.7%
- 2–5pm74.0%
- 5–8pm71.2%
- 8pm–5am85.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 68.4% on time, 25 points below April, the best at 93.1%. 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 249 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 34,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 to one. The split is drawn from 34,100 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 34,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.26% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,337 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 78.1% on time across 2,784 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,781 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 93.1% on time and July 68.4%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,742 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DEN to CLT questions
How often is DEN to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.5% of the 2,781 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 84.5% on time across 1,724 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 78.7%, a gap of 6 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DEN to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.2%, 21 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 DEN to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 68.4% on time, compared with 93.1% in April. Across the year that is 25 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
- CLT to DEN — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on DEN to CLT84.5%
- Frontier Airlines on DEN to CLT82.7%
- United Airlines on DEN to CLT78.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DEN to CLT76.3%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- DEN to SLC, a related route78.2%
- American Airlines on-time record84.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record82.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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. DEN to CLT and CLT to DEN 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.