Route reliability record
IAH→CLT
Houston to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,314
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 912 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly 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 2,314 IAH to CLT flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAH to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.5%, against 81.8% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 45 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,269 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
84.1% on time across 1,607 flights
These figures cover 2,314 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 IAH 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 | 1,607 | 84.1% | 142 min | 1.68% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 108 | 79.2% | 55 min | 1.85% | B |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 339 | 78.6% | 57 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 260 | 72.4% | 55 min | 3.85% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on IAH to CLT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am462 flights91.2%
- 8am–11am496 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm343 flights82.8%
- 2pm–5pm341 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm672 flights74.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.2% of the time, against 74.1% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 672 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAH 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 IAH to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 74.1%, a wide gap of 17.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.2%
- 8–11am86.8%
- 11am–2pm82.8%
- 2–5pm75.9%
- 5–8pm74.1%
- 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 16 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.
June is the worst month at 74.7% on time, 16 points below January, the best at 91.1%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 227 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 79.9%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 45,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 4%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. Across 45,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 44,566 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 45,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.82% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 912 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 runs 79.2% on time across 2,315 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 2,314 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. January runs 91.1% on time and June 74.7%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,269 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAH to CLT questions
How often is IAH to CLT delayed?
Roughly 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 18.2% of the 2,314 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is IAH to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
81.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 IAH to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.1%, 17 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 June delays on IAH to CLT?
June is the weakest month at 74.7% on time, compared with 91.1% in January. Across the year that is 16 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 IAH — the return legseparate record
- George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on IAH to CLT84.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on IAH to CLT79.2%
- United Airlines on IAH to CLT78.6%
- Frontier Airlines on IAH to CLT72.4%
- IAH to ORD, a related route75.1%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- IAH to DFW, a related route76.4%
- American Airlines on-time record84.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- United Airlines on-time record78.6%
- 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. IAH to CLT and CLT to IAH 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.