Carrier route record

AAPHL→CLT

American Airlines · Philadelphia to Charlotte

Flights: 2,864
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 82%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. 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 is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 2,864 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.

Set against the rest of the country, American's PHL to CLT record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 47 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

82.3%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,785 completed flights

Avg delay

85 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.55%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.6%

Every carrier on PHL to CLT, 3,512 flights

These figures cover 2,864 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on PHL to CLT

American flew 2,864 of the 3,512 flights on PHL to CLT, most of the route. Its 82.3% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 80.6%. 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 72.6%. 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.

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 (this page)	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

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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am358 flights91.4%
8am–11am685 flights87.4%
11am–2pm439 flights84.6%
2pm–5pm518 flights77.7%
5pm–8pm744 flights75.4%
8pm–5am120 flights78.9%

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

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.4% of the time, against 75.4% 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 744 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHL to CLT through the year

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

July is the worst month at 71.0% on time, 20 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, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.2%. 11 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 50% of the 42,000 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
50%
Carrier
33%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
3%
Security
0%

50% 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 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 41,767 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 91.4% on time here.

Cancellations run at 2.55%, against 1.81% 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

7.5% 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 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 runs 79.6% on time across 2,858 flights, within 3 points 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 2,864 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 71.0%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,785 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures