Route reliability record
MSP→CLT
Minneapolis to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,451
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 930 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That rests on 2,451 MSP to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,262 at 80.9% on time.
Best time to fly MSP to CLT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.5%, against 80.5% 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,409 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.39%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
80.9% on time across 1,262 flights
These figures cover 2,451 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: about a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,262 | 80.9% | 94 min | 1.58% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,189 | 80.1% | 70 min | 1.18% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 80.9%, about a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Minneapolis to Charlotte
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MSP → CLTMinneapolis to Charlotte | American Airlines | 79.6% | 80.9% | 1.58% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. MSP → CLTMinneapolis to Charlotte | Delta Air Lines | 79.2% | 80.1% | 1.18% | 8am–11am, Tue | DL 2819 12:50 |
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 18 points, against about a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am570 flights86.2%
- 8am–11am398 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm463 flights80.2%
- 2pm–5pm469 flights79.0%
- 5pm–8pm340 flights69.3%
- 8pm–5am211 flights74.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 69.3% for the evening window. That is 18 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 570 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to CLT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.3%, a wide gap of 17.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am86.2%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm80.2%
- 2–5pm79.0%
- 5–8pm69.3%
- 8pm–5am74.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
December is the weak month at 67.9% on time, against 89.3% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 226 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 53% of the 38,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 53%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 20,000 of the 38,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 38,409 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.39% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.6% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 930 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.
The return leg runs 81.5% on time across 2,451 flights, within about a point 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 2,451 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 89.3% on time and December 67.9%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,409 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to CLT questions
How often is MSP 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 2,451 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on MSP to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 80.9% on time across 1,262 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 80.1%, a gap of about a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to CLT?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.3%, 18 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 December delays on MSP to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 67.9% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on MSP to CLT80.9%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to CLT80.1%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- American Airlines on-time record80.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. MSP to CLT and CLT to MSP 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.