Route reliability record
MEM→CLT
Memphis to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,738
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 511 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 6 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,738 MEM to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly MEM to CLT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.7%, against 83.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 60 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,699 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.13%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
85.9% on time across 1,411 flights
These figures cover 1,738 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MEM 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,411 | 85.9% | 85 min | 1.63% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 327 | 73.4% | 96 min | 4.28% | C− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MEM 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.
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 19 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–8am564 flights89.2%
- 8am–11am382 flights90.0%
- 11am–2pm190 flights83.1%
- 2pm–5pm269 flights78.5%
- 5pm–8pm333 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.0% of the time, against 71.4% for the evening window. That is 19 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 564 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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.
July is the worst month at 75.7% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 93.8%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 158 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.8%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 44% of the 24,000 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.
- 44%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
40% 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 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 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 24,460 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, 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 11,000 of the 24,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.13% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.2% 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 511 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 75.6% on time across 1,737 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,738 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. September runs 93.8% on time and July 75.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,699 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MEM to CLT questions
How often is MEM to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.4% of the 1,738 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is MEM to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
83.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MEM to CLT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 90.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.4%, 19 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 July delays on MEM to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 75.7% on time, compared with 93.8% in September. Across the year that is 18 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 MEM — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MEM to CLT85.9%
- PSA Airlines on MEM to CLT73.4%
- MEM to ATL, a related route87.4%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- MEM to ORD, a related route76.0%
- American Airlines on-time record85.9%
- PSA Airlines on-time record73.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. MEM to CLT and CLT to MEM 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.