Carrier route record
AAORD→CLT
American Airlines · Chicago to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,999
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 70%
- Carriers
- 6
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ORD to CLT sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 2,999 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 377 at 79.7% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on ORD 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
74.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,923 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.43%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.5%
Every carrier on ORD to CLT, 4,306 flights
These figures cover 2,999 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% 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
American against every carrier on ORD to CLT
American flew 2,999 of the 4,306 flights on ORD to CLT, most of the route. Its 74.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of six carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 100.0% to SkyWest at 53.6%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 79.7% of the time; United Airlines manages 70.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 612 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 | 377 | 79.7% | 78 min | 2.12% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,999 | 74.6% | 85 min | 2.43% | C |
| United Airlines | 612 | 70.6% | 76 min | 0.98% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 157 | 67.1% | 121 min | 3.18% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 160 | 53.6% | 52 min | 4.38% | F− |
Republic leads United by 9 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on ORD to CLT
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 23 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am726 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am680 flights78.5%
- 11am–2pm367 flights74.6%
- 2pm–5pm391 flights64.8%
- 5pm–8pm592 flights66.5%
- 8pm–5am243 flights64.0%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 64.0% on time, against 86.5% 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 726 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ORD to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 65.4% on time, 18 points below October, the best at 83.1%. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 300 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.0% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.8%. 9 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 63,000 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.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
58% 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 63,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 63,038 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 86.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.43% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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. 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 71.0% on time across 3,000 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,999 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on ORD to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 83.1% on time and July 65.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,923 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to CLT79.7%
- United Airlines on ORD to CLT70.6%
- Frontier Airlines on ORD to CLT67.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CLT53.6%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.