Carrier route record
AAMKE→CLT
American Airlines · Milwaukee to Charlotte
- Flights
- 753
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MKE to CLT lands a B, 3 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 about 2.1 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 753 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on MKE 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 740 completed flights
Avg delay
128 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.59%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.4%
Every carrier on MKE to CLT, 960 flights
These figures cover 753 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
American against every carrier on MKE to CLT
American flew 753 of the 960 flights on MKE to CLT, most of the route. Its 80.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.3% to PSA at 76.2%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 753 | 80.3% | 128 min | 1.59% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 207 | 76.2% | 93 min | 2.42% | B |
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 24 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–8am306 flights85.0%
- 8am–11am59 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm40 flights62.5%
- 2pm–5pm198 flights79.3%
- 5pm–8pm150 flights74.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 62.5% on time against 86.4% for 8am–11am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 306 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on MKE to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 67.7% on time, against 91.8% 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. June was the busiest month here, with 84 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 86.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%. 13 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. Carrier accounts for 68% of the 19,000 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.
- 68%Carrier
- 22%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, 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 13,000 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 18,666 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.59% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.3% 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 about 2.1 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 651 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 74.9% on time across 752 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 753 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on MKE to CLT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 753 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 740 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MKE to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to MKE, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on MKE to CLT76.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.