Carrier route record

AAIAH→CLT

American Airlines · Houston to Charlotte

Flights: 1,622
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 69%
Carriers: 4

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

American on IAH 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 about 2.3 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,622 flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's IAH to CLT record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,588 completed flights

Avg delay

135 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.97%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.5%

Every carrier on IAH to CLT, 2,348 flights

These figures cover 1,622 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on IAH to CLT

American flew 1,622 of the 2,348 flights on IAH to CLT, most of the route. Its 82.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 82.4% to Frontier at 67.5%. Two 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 IAH to CLT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	1,622	82.4%	135 min	1.97%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	115	76.1%	53 min	1.74%	B
United Airlines	394	74.7%	60 min	1.52%	C
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	217	67.5%	58 min	3.69%	C−

Flight by flight

American flight numbers on IAH to CLT

AA 201106:3190.3% · 362 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 21 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–8am469 flights90.1%
8am–11am363 flights85.1%
11am–2pm259 flights81.8%
2pm–5pm257 flights80.1%
5pm–8pm274 flights68.7%
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 90.1% of the time, against 68.7% for the evening window. That is 21 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 469 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on IAH to CLT through the year

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

July is the worst month at 67.6% on time, 25 points below January, the best at 92.6%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 153 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 81.2%. 4 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 49% of the 38,000 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
49%
Carrier
38%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
0%

49% 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 38,000 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 37,730 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 38,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

8.8% 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 about 2.3 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. 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 76.1% on time across 1,623 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 1,622 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 IAH to CLT

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 92.6% on time and July 67.6%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,588 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