Carrier route record

AAFLL→CLT

American Airlines · Fort Lauderdale to Charlotte

Flights: 2,105
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 70%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on FLL to CLT 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 2,105 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's FLL to CLT record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,062 completed flights

Avg delay

98 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.95%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

78.7%

Every carrier on FLL to CLT, 3,015 flights

These figures cover 2,105 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

American against every carrier on FLL to CLT

American flew 2,105 of the 3,015 flights on FLL to CLT, most of the route. Its 82.3% on time is 4 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 78.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.3% to Frontier at 65.6%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on FLL to CLT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	2,105	82.3%	98 min	1.95%	B
Spirit Airlines	748	71.3%	67 min	4.01%	C−
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	162	65.6%	75 min	3.09%	C−

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on FLL to CLT

AA 141910:1689.2% · 254 flights

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 27 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–8am437 flights94.3%
8am–11am527 flights90.3%
11am–2pm291 flights82.9%
2pm–5pm461 flights73.6%
5pm–8pm389 flights67.7%
8pm–5am—

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 94.3% of the time, against 67.7% for the evening window. That is 27 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 527 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on FLL to CLT through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, July worst

July is the worst month at 69.7% on time, 21 points below October, the best at 90.5%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 206 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%. 13 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 50% of the 36,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
50%
Carrier
38%
Extreme weather
6%
National Airspace System
6%
Security
0%

50% 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 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 35,851 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, 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 14,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.5% 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 632 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 76.0% on time across 2,106 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 2,105 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 FLL to CLT

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 90.5% on time and July 69.7%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,062 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures