Route reliability record
ORD→CLT
Chicago to Charlotte
- Flights
- 4,494
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 599 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,494 ORD to CLT flights, of which Republic Airways flew 457 at 79.4% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.3% of the time and Tuesday flights 77.7%, against 73.7% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 79.4% on time across 457 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,385 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.31%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
79.4% on time across 457 flights
These figures cover 4,494 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.4% of the time; United Airlines manages 68.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 494 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 457 | 79.4% | 74 min | 2.19% | B |
| American Airlines | 3,145 | 74.7% | 83 min | 2.32% | C |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 138 | 69.2% | 124 min | 3.62% | C− |
| United Airlines | 494 | 68.1% | 81 min | 1.01% | C |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 259 | 64.0% | 51 min | 4.25% | D− |
Republic leads United by 11 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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 Chicago 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. 1 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ORD → CLTChicago to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 77.7% | 79.4% | 2.19% | 8am–11am, Thu | — |
| 2. ORD → CLTChicago to Charlotte | American Airlines | 73.0% | 74.7% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1784 07:10 |
| 3. MDW → CLTChicago to Charlotte | Southwest Airlines | 72.3% | 73.2% | 1.25% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. ORD → CLTChicago to Charlotte | United Airlines | 67.4% | 68.1% | 1.01% | 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 26 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,154 flights86.3%
- 8am–11am754 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm497 flights74.8%
- 2pm–5pm803 flights69.8%
- 5pm–8pm1,021 flights60.9%
- 8pm–5am265 flights59.9%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.9% on time, against 86.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 1,154 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 59.9%, a wide gap of 26.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.3%
- 8–11am79.7%
- 11am–2pm74.8%
- 2–5pm69.8%
- 5–8pm60.9%
- 8pm–5am59.9%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 82.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 434 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 77.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.2%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 93,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 93,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 93,345 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.31% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 599 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 72.4% on time across 4,489 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 4,494 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. October runs 82.9% on time and March 64.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 4,385 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to CLT questions
How often is ORD to CLT delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.3% of the 4,494 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 ORD to CLT?
Republic Airways leads at 79.4% on time across 457 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 68.1%, a gap of 11 points. 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 ORD to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.9%, 26 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 March delays on ORD to CLT?
March is the weakest month at 64.5% on time, compared with 82.9% in October. 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to CLT79.4%
- American Airlines on ORD to CLT74.7%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to CLT69.2%
- United Airlines on ORD to CLT68.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CLT64.0%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record79.4%
- American Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to CLT and CLT to ORD 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.