Route reliability record
MHT→CLT
Manchester to Charlotte
- Flights
- 917
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 738 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route 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 917 MHT to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly MHT to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.6%, against 80.5% 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 878 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.82%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
80.5% on time across 917 flights
These figures cover 917 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 MHT 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlines | 917 | 80.5% | 104 min | 3.82% | B− |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Manchester 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. BOS → CLTBoston to Charlotte | American Airlines | 81.8% | 83.8% | 2.34% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. BOS → CLTBoston to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 77.7% | 80.5% | 3.42% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5626 08:15 |
| 3. MHT → CLTManchester to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 77.4% | 80.5% | 3.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 25 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–8am363 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am1 flights—
- 11am–2pm180 flights74.0%
- 2pm–5pm192 flights78.4%
- 5pm–8pm181 flights67.1%
- 8pm–5am—
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 91.6% of the time, against 67.1% for the evening window. That is 25 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
February is the weak month at 70.2% on time, against 94.6% in October. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 92 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 76.4%. 10 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 18,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
51% 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 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 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 17,788 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, 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 6,060 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported 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 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 738 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 runs 78.2% on time across 917 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 917 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
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 3.82% 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. 878 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MHT to CLT questions
How often is MHT 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 19.5% of the 917 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MHT to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
80.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 MHT to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.1%, 25 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 February delays on MHT to CLT?
February is the weakest month at 70.2% on time, compared with 94.6% in October. Across the year that is 24 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 MHT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- MHT to BWI, a related route87.7%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- MHT to DCA, a related route70.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record80.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MHT to CLT and CLT to MHT 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.