Route reliability record
JFK→CLT
New York to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,998
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 542 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,998 JFK to CLT flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.9%, against 80.3% 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,930 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
79.7% on time across 1,859 flights
These figures cover 1,998 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 JFK 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 139 | 87.7% | 97 min | 0.72% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,859 | 79.7% | 99 min | 3.17% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on JFK 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York 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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 84.1% | 87.5% | 3.94% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | American Airlines | 78.0% | 81.0% | 3.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1575 08:00 |
| 3. JFK → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.2% | 79.7% | 3.17% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1444 07:59 |
| 4. LGA → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 74.5% | 77.4% | 3.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | United Airlines | 74.2% | 75.7% | 1.94% | 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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am427 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am304 flights84.9%
- 11am–2pm486 flights84.0%
- 2pm–5pm448 flights70.5%
- 5pm–8pm319 flights70.5%
- 8pm–5am14 flights—
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 70.5% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 486 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter JFK 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 JFK to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 70.5%, a wide gap of 19.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.1%
- 8–11am84.9%
- 11am–2pm84.0%
- 2–5pm70.5%
- 5–8pm70.5%
- 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 19 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 68.5% on time, against 87.7% in May. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 217 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 37,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
41% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 37,461 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.00%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 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
8.4% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 542 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 71.5% on time across 2,002 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,998 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.00% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,930 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
JFK to CLT questions
How often is JFK 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 19.7% of the 1,998 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is JFK to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
80.3% 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 JFK to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 70.5%, 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 JFK to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 68.5% on time, compared with 87.7% in May. Across the year that is 19 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 JFK — the return legseparate record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on JFK to CLT87.7%
- American Airlines on JFK to CLT79.7%
- JFK to LAX, a related route75.4%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- JFK to SFO, a related route71.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.7%
- American Airlines on-time record79.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. JFK to CLT and CLT to JFK 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.