Route reliability record
EYW→CLT
Key West to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,262
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 736 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,262 EYW to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly EYW to CLT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.1%, against 82.9% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 53 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,226 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.69%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
81.9% on time across 913 flights
These figures cover 1,262 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 EYW to CLT
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 | 349 | 85.3% | 37 min | 2.01% | A |
| American Airlines | 913 | 81.9% | 108 min | 2.96% | B |
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 15 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–8am103 flights85.1%
- 8am–11am98 flights93.8%
- 11am–2pm354 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm508 flights84.1%
- 5pm–8pm199 flights79.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 93.8% of the time, against 79.3% for the evening window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 508 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
February is the weak month at 75.2% on time, against 90.2% in October. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.9%. 16 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 51% of the 19,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
51% 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 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 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 19,160 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 7,534 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.69%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 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 actually costs
6.0% 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 last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 736 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 runs 82.7% on time across 1,262 flights, within half a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,262 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. October runs 90.2% on time and February 75.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of February before you think about anything else. 1,226 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EYW to CLT questions
How often is EYW 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 17.1% of the 1,262 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is EYW to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
82.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EYW to CLT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 93.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 79.3%, 15 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 February delays on EYW to CLT?
February is the weakest month at 75.2% on time, compared with 90.2% in October. Across the year that is 15 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 EYW — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on EYW to CLT85.3%
- American Airlines on EYW to CLT81.9%
- EYW to ATL, a related route85.7%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- EYW to MIA, a related route80.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record85.3%
- American Airlines on-time record81.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EYW to CLT and CLT to EYW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed EYW to CLT’s on-time badge on your site
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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.