Route reliability record

PHL→CLT

Philadelphia to Charlotte

Flights: 3,512
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 449 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,512 flights, of which American Airlines flew 2,864 at 82.3% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

80.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,419 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.42%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

82.3% on time across 2,864 flights

These figures cover 3,512 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% 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

Which airline is most reliable on PHL to CLT

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 82.3% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.6%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 544 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on PHL to CLT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
PSA Airlinesthin sample	7	100.0%	—	0.00%	A+
American Airlines	2,864	82.3%	85 min	2.55%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	97	76.3%	75 min	0.00%	B+
Frontier Airlines	544	72.6%	74 min	2.21%	C

American leads Frontier by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 13 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am586 flights86.5%
8am–11am776 flights87.2%
11am–2pm531 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm622 flights75.4%
5pm–8pm836 flights74.0%
8pm–5am161 flights74.7%

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 74.0% for the evening window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 836 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

When delays peak on this route

This route's year swings by 20 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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, December worst

December is the weak month at 69.5% on time, against 89.0% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 308 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.7%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 54,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
16%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

48% 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 54,000 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 54,232 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 2.42% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

8.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 449 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.6% on time across 3,510 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.

The sample behind these figures is 3,512 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 89.0% on time and December 69.5%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 3,419 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

PHL to CLT questions

How often is PHL to CLT delayed?

About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.4% of the 3,512 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on PHL to CLT?

American Airlines leads at 82.3% on time across 2,864 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 72.6%, a gap of 10 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 PHL to CLT?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.0%, 13 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 PHL to CLT?

December is the weakest month at 69.5% on time, compared with 89.0% in September. Across the year that is 20 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.

Where to go next

Direction matters. PHL to CLT and CLT to PHL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures