Route reliability record
DEN→CLT
Denver to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,813
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,337 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,813 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,715 at 85.1% on time.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,773 completed flights
Avg delay
68 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.28%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
85.1% on time across 1,715 flights
These figures cover 2,813 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DEN to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 85.1% of the time; United Airlines manages 77.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 675 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 214 | 86.7% | 54 min | 1.40% | A |
| American Airlines | 1,715 | 85.1% | 76 min | 1.40% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 20 | 80.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| United Airlines | 675 | 77.6% | 66 min | 0.59% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 189 | 70.1% | 43 min | 2.65% | C |
American leads United by 8 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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 8 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am403 flights92.9%
- 8am–11am771 flights84.0%
- 11am–2pm527 flights85.2%
- 2pm–5pm424 flights76.2%
- 5pm–8pm371 flights69.8%
- 8pm–5am317 flights83.4%
Scale runs 60% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.9% of the time, against 69.8% for the evening window. That is 23 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 771 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 64.0% on time, 29 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. July was the busiest month here, with 254 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 87.2% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.2%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 33,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% 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 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 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 33,265 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 12,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.28% against a national 1.81%, 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 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.0% on time across 2,816 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,813 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 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 64.0%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,773 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.6% of the 2,813 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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 85.1% on time across 1,715 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 77.6%, a gap of 8 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 92.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.8%, 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 DEN to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 64.0% on time, compared with 93.1% in April. Across the year that is 29 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
- Frontier Airlines on-time record86.7%
- American Airlines on-time record85.1%
- 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 7.04 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.