Route reliability record
GRR→CLT
Grand Rapids to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,008
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 583 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 1,008 GRR to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly GRR to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 85.0%, against 79.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route 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 996 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.09%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.8% on time across 1,008 flights
These figures cover 1,008 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on GRR 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,008 | 79.8% | 106 min | 1.09% | B |
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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am328 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am39 flights75.0%
- 11am–2pm317 flights83.8%
- 2pm–5pm26 flights—
- 5pm–8pm298 flights67.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 67.5% for the evening window. That is 20 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 328 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter GRR 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 GRR to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.5%, a wide gap of 19.7 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.2%
- 8–11am75.0%
- 11am–2pm83.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm67.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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.
December is the weak month at 64.8% on time, against 91.9% in September. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.7%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 21,358 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 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.09% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.2% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 583 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 74.8% on time across 1,009 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,008 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,008 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 996 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
GRR to CLT questions
How often is GRR to CLT delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.2% of the 1,008 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is GRR to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
79.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on GRR to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.5%, 20 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 December delays on GRR to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 64.8% on time, compared with 91.9% in September. Across the year that is 27 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 GRR — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- GRR to ORD, a related route69.1%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- GRR to DTW, a related route79.6%
- American Airlines on-time record79.8%
- 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. GRR to CLT and CLT to GRR 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.