Route reliability record
MLB→CLT
Melbourne to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,114
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 490 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B−, 4 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,114 MLB to CLT flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Best time to fly MLB to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 86.1%, against 81.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
81.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,080 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
81.2% on time across 1,114 flights
These figures cover 1,114 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 13 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MLB 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 | 1,114 | 81.2% | 108 min | 3.05% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on MLB 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Melbourne 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. 3 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MLB → CLTMelbourne to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 78.7% | 81.2% | 3.05% | 5am–8am, Tue | OH 5386 06:02 |
| 2. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | American Airlines | 78.0% | 79.3% | 1.68% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1896 05:00 |
| 3. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | Frontier Airlines | 77.5% | 78.5% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | F9 1446 09:38 |
| 4. MCO → CLTOrlando to Charlotte | Spirit Airlines | 68.6% | 72.5% | 5.41% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am330 flights90.9%
- 8am–11am28 flights—
- 11am–2pm376 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm75 flights77.5%
- 5pm–8pm305 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.9% of the time, against 71.6% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 376 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MLB to CLT by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On MLB to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.6%, a wide gap of 19.3 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.9%
- 8–11am—
- 11am–2pm80.3%
- 2–5pm77.5%
- 5–8pm71.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 27 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 67.4% on time, 27 points below September, the best at 94.8%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Saturday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 17%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 17% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.8 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 21,830 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations run at 3.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly 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 actually costs
7.7% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 490 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 78.8% on time across 1,114 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.
The sample behind these figures is 1,114 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.05% 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. 1,080 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MLB to CLT questions
How often is MLB 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 18.8% of the 1,114 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is MLB to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
81.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MLB to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.6%, 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 MLB to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 67.4% on time, compared with 94.8% in September. Across the year that is 27 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 MLB — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- MLB to ATL, a related route86.7%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- ORD to CLT, a related route73.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.2%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. MLB to CLT and CLT to MLB 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.