Carrier route record
AAJFK→CLT
American Airlines · New York to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,859
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 93%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on JFK to CLT lands a B−, 2 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 1,859 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on JFK to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,792 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on JFK to CLT, 1,998 flights
These figures cover 1,859 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on JFK to CLT
American flew 1,859 of the 1,998 flights on JFK to CLT, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.7% to American at 79.7%. One 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 139 | 87.7% | 97 min | 0.72% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,859 | 79.7% | 99 min | 3.17% | B− |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on JFK to CLT
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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am427 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am287 flights84.4%
- 11am–2pm364 flights83.0%
- 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 448 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on JFK to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 68.1% on time, against 87.0% 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 186 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.2%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on JFK to CLT runs when it is late
American on JFK to CLT often beats the schedule: 775 of 1,792 completed flights, 43%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 363 late arrivals split 102 under half an hour, 106 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 155 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early775 flights43.2%
- Within 15 min654 flights36.5%
- 15–29 min late102 flights5.7%
- 30–59 min late106 flights5.9%
- 1–2 hours late78 flights4.4%
- 2+ hours late77 flights4.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,792 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
77 of 350 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 22% of them. In the other direction, 90 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at CLT.
The worst days
Worst days for American on JFK to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 31 March 2026, 29 hours 52 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in March 2026.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 31 March 2026 | 29 hours 52 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 March 2026 | 18 hours 42 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 September 2025 | 17 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 May 2026 | 14 hours 44 minutes | Carrier |
| 7 March 2026 | 13 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
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 36,000 reported delay minutes.
- 42%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
42% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 35,819 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 3.17%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about 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 costs
8.6% 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 70.5% on time across 1,863 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 1,859 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 JFK to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.17% 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. 1,792 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- JFK to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to JFK, the return leg
- Republic Airways on JFK to CLT87.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.