Carrier route record
AAPHL→CLT
American Airlines · Philadelphia to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,876
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 81%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHL to CLT lands a B, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,876 flights, with a median arrival 13 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's PHL to CLT record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 49 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,794 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.68%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.2%
Every carrier on PHL to CLT, 3,535 flights
These figures cover 2,876 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHL to CLT
American flew 2,876 of the 3,535 flights on PHL to CLT, most of the route. Its 82.2% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from PSA at 100.0% to Frontier at 69.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 7 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 2,876 | 82.2% | 82 min | 2.68% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 80 | 80.0% | 68 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 572 | 69.8% | 74 min | 3.50% | C− |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am354 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am683 flights87.0%
- 11am–2pm429 flights83.0%
- 2pm–5pm545 flights78.7%
- 5pm–8pm745 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am120 flights78.9%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 75.8% for the evening window. That is 16 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 745 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHL to CLT through the year
July is the worst month at 71.4% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 90.6%. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 248 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.0%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHL to CLT runs when it is late
American on PHL to CLT often beats the schedule: 1,286 of 2,794 completed flights, 46%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 498 late arrivals split 151 under half an hour, 120 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 227 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early1,286 flights46.0%
- Within 15 min1,010 flights36.1%
- 15–29 min late151 flights5.4%
- 30–59 min late120 flights4.3%
- 1–2 hours late143 flights5.1%
- 2+ hours late84 flights3.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,794 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
162 of 569 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 28% of them. 91 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHL to CLT
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 March 2026, 12 hours 32 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On four of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 March 2026 | 12 hours 32 minutes | Carrier |
| 19 June 2026 | 11 hours 59 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 October 2025 | 10 hours 46 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 19 October 2025 | 10 hours 4 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 July 2026 | 10 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 56% of the 41,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
56% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 40,948 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.68%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.1% 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 an hour and a half, 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.1% on time across 2,873 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 2,876 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 PHL to CLT
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.6% on time and July 71.4%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,794 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHL to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to PHL, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on PHL to CLT69.8%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.