Route reliability record
PHX→CLT
Phoenix to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,879
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,773 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 2,879 PHX to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHX to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.8%, against 87.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 103 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,845 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
87.6% on time across 2,879 flights
These figures cover 2,879 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to CLT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 2,879 | 87.6% | 78 min | 1.04% | A |
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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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am726 flights95.0%
- 8am–11am578 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm548 flights84.7%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights77.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am712 flights87.3%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.0% of the time, against 77.0% for the afternoon window. That is 18 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 726 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 95.0% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 77.0%, a wide gap of 18.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am95.0%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm84.7%
- 2–5pm77.0%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am87.3%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 74.9% on time, 18 points below February, the best at 92.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 279 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 83.6%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 27,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 10%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 27,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 to one. The split is drawn from 27,371 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 13,000 of the 27,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.04% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
At 1,773 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.0% on time across 2,881 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,879 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. February runs 92.9% on time and July 74.9%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,845 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to CLT questions
How often is PHX to CLT delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.4% of the 2,879 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is PHX to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
87.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on PHX to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.0% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.0%, 18 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 PHX to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 74.9% on time, compared with 92.9% in February. Across the year that is 18 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- American Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. PHX to CLT and CLT to PHX 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.