Route reliability record
PNS→CLT
Pensacola to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,934
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 488 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 6 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 about 2.3 hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,934 PNS to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 632 at 87.2% on time.
Best time to fly PNS to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.7%, against 83.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 6 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 61 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,891 completed flights
Avg delay
141 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.07%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
87.2% on time across 632 flights
These figures cover 1,934 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
Which airline is most reliable on PNS to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 632 | 87.2% | 141 min | 1.42% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 1,192 | 82.4% | 153 min | 2.43% | B |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 110 | 77.8% | 36 min | 1.82% | B |
No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 87.2%, 5 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.
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. 1 of the top 3 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 | 86.0% | 87.2% | 1.42% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 2. VPS → CLTValparaiso to Charlotte | American Airlines | 82.9% | 83.8% | 1.04% | 8am–11am, Wed | AA 2909 16:40 |
| 3. PNS → CLTPensacola to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 80.4% | 82.4% | 2.43% | 5am–8am, Wed | OH 5353 05:23 |
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 11 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am633 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am173 flights79.7%
- 11am–2pm438 flights86.2%
- 2pm–5pm459 flights82.1%
- 5pm–8pm231 flights75.8%
- 8pm–5am—
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 87.1% of the time, against 75.8% for the evening window. That is 11 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 633 flights scheduled in it.
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. July was the busiest month here, with 185 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.2%. 5 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. Carrier accounts for 49% of the 43,000 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.
- 49%Carrier
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 43,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 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 43,350 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 21,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.07% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.2% 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 about 2.3 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 77.0% on time across 1,933 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,934 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. 1,891 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 16.3% of the 1,934 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.3 hours on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PNS to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 87.2% on time across 632 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 82.4%, a gap of 5 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 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.8%, 11 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 CLT87.2%
- PSA Airlines on PNS to CLT82.4%
- Envoy Air on PNS to CLT77.8%
- PNS to ATL, a related route90.2%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- PNS to DFW, a related route69.9%
- American Airlines on-time record87.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record77.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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.
Embed PNS to CLT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.