Carrier route record
AALGA→CLT
American Airlines · New York to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,804
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on LGA to CLT carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,804 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on LGA 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
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,693 completed flights
Avg delay
107 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.2%
Every carrier on LGA to CLT, 4,336 flights
These figures cover 2,804 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 LGA to CLT
American flew 2,804 of the 4,336 flights on LGA to CLT, most of the route. Its 78.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.2% to Frontier at 60.1%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 965 | 81.2% | 69 min | 3.94% | B− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,804 | 78.0% | 107 min | 3.82% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 332 | 70.6% | 74 min | 5.72% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 235 | 60.1% | 75 min | 2.98% | D |
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 37 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–8am601 flights91.5%
- 8am–11am613 flights83.2%
- 11am–2pm457 flights79.6%
- 2pm–5pm374 flights69.1%
- 5pm–8pm697 flights67.3%
- 8pm–5am62 flights55.0%
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 55.0% on time, against 91.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 697 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on LGA to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 65.4% on time, against 87.7% in September. 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 268 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.4%. 15 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 50% of the 63,000 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% 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 63,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 63,163 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.5% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.82%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 544 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 68.9% on time across 2,802 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 2,804 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 LGA to CLT
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.82% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; 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. 2,693 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- LGA to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to LGA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on LGA to CLT81.2%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to CLT70.6%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to CLT60.1%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- LaGuardia (LGA) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.