Route reliability record
PNS→CLT
Pensacola to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,847
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 488 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 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 about 2.5 hours on average. That rests on 1,847 PNS to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 577 at 85.4% on time.
Best time to fly PNS to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.0% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.5%, against 83.5% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 62 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,804 completed flights
Avg delay
149 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.17%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
85.4% on time across 577 flights
These figures cover 1,847 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% 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 PNS to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 70 | 88.6% | 34 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 577 | 85.4% | 166 min | 1.39% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 1,200 | 82.3% | 147 min | 2.67% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 85.4%, 3 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on PNS 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 Pensacola to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 4 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PNS → CLTPensacola to Charlotte | American Airlines | 84.2% | 85.4% | 1.39% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 2. VPS → CLTValparaiso to Charlotte | American Airlines | 80.2% | 81.1% | 1.09% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2909 16:40 |
| 3. PNS → CLTPensacola to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 80.1% | 82.3% | 2.67% | 5am–8am, Wed | OH 5353 05:23 |
| 4. VPS → CLTValparaiso to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 68.4% | 72.8% | 6.05% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,847 flights.
- 5am–8am624 flights87.0%
- 8am–11am172 flights78.4%
- 11am–2pm409 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm452 flights79.7%
- 5pm–8pm190 flights79.5%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.0% of the time, against 78.4% for the morning window. That is 9 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 624 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PNS 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 PNS to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.0% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 78.4%, a real gap of 8.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.0%
- 8–11am78.4%
- 11am–2pm86.5%
- 2–5pm79.7%
- 5–8pm79.5%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. 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.
December is the weak month at 72.8% on time, against 90.5% 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 179 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 80.9%, a spread of 7 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 52% of the 44,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Carrier
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 44,339 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 52%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 23,000 of the 44,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.17% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.0% 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 about 2.5 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 488 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 75.0% on time across 1,846 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,847 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. September runs 90.5% on time and December 72.8%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,804 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PNS to CLT questions
How often is PNS to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.5% of the 1,847 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.5 hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PNS to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 85.4% on time across 577 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 82.3%, a gap of 3 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 PNS to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.0% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 78.4%, 9 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 PNS to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 72.8% on time, compared with 90.5% in September. 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 PNS — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PNS to CLT85.4%
- PSA Airlines on PNS to CLT82.3%
- PNS to ATL, a related route88.8%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- PNS to DFW, a related route73.7%
- Envoy Air on-time record88.6%
- American Airlines on-time record85.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record82.3%
- 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. PNS to CLT and CLT to PNS 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.