Route reliability record
ORF→CLT
Norfolk to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,491
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 290 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 2,491 ORF to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,490 at 83.5% on time.
Best time to fly ORF to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.1%, against 81.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 40 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,440 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.85%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
83.5% on time across 1,490 flights
These figures cover 2,491 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 ORF to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 6 points 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 | 1,490 | 83.5% | 104 min | 1.54% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 997 | 77.9% | 107 min | 2.21% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 66.7% | 319 min | 25.00% | C− |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 83.5%, 6 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORF 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 Norfolk 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. ORF → CLTNorfolk to Charlotte | American Airlines | 82.2% | 83.5% | 1.54% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. ORF → CLTNorfolk to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 76.2% | 77.9% | 2.21% | 8am–11am, Wed | OH 5036 07:06 |
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 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am605 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am341 flights86.0%
- 11am–2pm447 flights80.0%
- 2pm–5pm427 flights78.5%
- 5pm–8pm461 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am210 flights70.9%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 70.9% for the overnight 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 605 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORF 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 ORF to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 70.9%, a wide gap of 18.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.4%
- 8–11am86.0%
- 11am–2pm80.0%
- 2–5pm78.5%
- 5–8pm75.5%
- 8pm–5am70.9%
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.
July is the worst month at 68.1% on time, 21 points below October, the best at 89.1%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 243 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.8%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 48,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 5%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 48,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 to one. The split is drawn from 48,278 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 48,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.85% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.4% 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.
At 290 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.1% on time across 2,491 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,491 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 89.1% on time and July 68.1%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,440 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORF to CLT questions
How often is ORF 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 18.7% of the 2,491 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORF to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 83.5% on time across 1,490 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 77.9%, a gap of 6 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 ORF to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.9%, 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 ORF to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 68.1% on time, compared with 89.1% in October. 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 ORF — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on ORF to CLT83.5%
- PSA Airlines on ORF to CLT77.9%
- ORF to ATL, a related route85.1%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- ORF to ORD, a related route76.7%
- American Airlines on-time record83.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record66.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. ORF to CLT and CLT to ORF 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.