Route reliability record
IAD→CLT
Washington to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,994
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 322 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 6 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 1,994 IAD to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 440 at 85.2% on time.
Best time to fly IAD to CLT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.2%, against 83.7% for the route overall.
American Airlines is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 85.2% on time across 440 flights.
Key figures
On time
83.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,937 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
85.2% on time across 440 flights
These figures cover 1,994 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 IAD to CLT
The three carriers here are closely matched: 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 26 | 88.5% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 440 | 85.2% | 81 min | 1.36% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 1,032 | 84.1% | 104 min | 3.39% | B− |
| Republic Airways | 496 | 81.3% | 72 min | 2.82% | B |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.4% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 84.0% | 85.2% | 1.36% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. BWI → CLTBaltimore to Charlotte | American Airlines | 83.1% | 84.7% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 81.2% | 84.1% | 3.39% | 8am–11am, Mon | — |
| 4. IAD → CLTWashington to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 79.0% | 81.3% | 2.82% | 8pm–5am, Wed | — |
| 5. DCA → CLTWashington to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.6% | 80.0% | 3.02% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 12 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am299 flights88.0%
- 8am–11am410 flights88.9%
- 11am–2pm368 flights87.5%
- 2pm–5pm292 flights80.1%
- 5pm–8pm327 flights76.8%
- 8pm–5am298 flights78.5%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 88.9% of the time, against 76.8% for the evening window. That is 12 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 410 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 68.9% on time, against 94.5% 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. January was the busiest month here, with 197 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.8%. 9 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 50% of the 28,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
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 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 28,413 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 88.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.76%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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
6.3% 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.
At 322 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 81.1% on time across 1,995 flights, within 3 points 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 1,994 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. September runs 94.5% on time and December 68.9%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,937 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to CLT questions
How often is IAD 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 16.3% of the 1,994 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on IAD to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 85.2% on time across 440 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 81.3%, a gap of 4 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 IAD to CLT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.8%, 12 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 IAD to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 68.9% on time, compared with 94.5% in September. Across the year that is 26 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 IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on IAD to CLT85.2%
- PSA Airlines on IAD to CLT84.1%
- Republic Airways on IAD to CLT81.3%
- IAD to ATL, a related route79.2%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- IAD to DEN, a related route81.7%
- United Airlines on-time record88.5%
- American Airlines on-time record85.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record84.1%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. IAD to CLT and CLT to IAD 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.