Route reliability record
JFK→CLT
New York to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,028
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 542 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,028 JFK to CLT flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly JFK to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.3%, against 81.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
81.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,970 completed flights
Avg delay
100 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.61%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
80.3% on time across 1,833 flights
These figures cover 2,028 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
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 | 195 | 88.1% | 88 min | 0.51% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,833 | 80.3% | 101 min | 2.84% | 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.
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 | 86.8% | 89.7% | 3.22% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. JFK → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 78.0% | 80.3% | 2.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1444 07:59 |
| 3. LGA → CLTNew York to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 78.0% | 81.2% | 3.94% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.9% | 81.1% | 3.89% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1575 08:00 |
| 5. LGA → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 75.0% | 78.0% | 3.82% | 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 22 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–8am427 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am277 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm542 flights84.4%
- 2pm–5pm448 flights72.8%
- 5pm–8pm320 flights68.9%
- 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 90.6% of the time, against 68.9% for the evening window. That is 22 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 542 flights scheduled in it.
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 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
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.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
42% 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 37,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 37,256 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 15,000 of the 37,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 2.61%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about 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
8.4% 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.
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. 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 70.2% on time across 2,032 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,028 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. May runs 87.7% on time and December 68.5%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,970 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 18.9% of the 2,028 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% 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?
81.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 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 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 68.9%, 22 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 CLT88.1%
- American Airlines on JFK to CLT80.3%
- JFK to LAX, a related route77.6%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- JFK to SFO, a related route74.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record88.1%
- American Airlines on-time record80.3%
- 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.