Route reliability record

RIC→CLT

Richmond to Charlotte

Flights: 2,498
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 257 mi
Carriers: 4

This route lands a B, 6 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in six arrive 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 2,498 flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,996 at 84.2% on time.

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 58 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

83.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,441 completed flights

Avg delay

83 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

2.20%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

American

84.2% on time across 1,996 flights

These figures cover 2,498 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 13 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 RIC to CLT

The two carriers here are closely matched: 4 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.

On-time performance by carrier on RIC to CLT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	40	91.4%	50 min	12.50%	A−
American Airlines	1,996	84.2%	85 min	2.10%	B
PSA Airlines	431	80.0%	76 min	1.39%	B
SkyWest Airlinesthin sample	31	69.0%	113 min	6.45%	C−

No carrier stands out. American tops the table at 84.2%, 4 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.

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 4 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am646 flights88.9%
8am–11am368 flights89.5%
11am–2pm373 flights84.5%
2pm–5pm458 flights80.2%
5pm–8pm436 flights78.3%
8pm–5am217 flights71.9%

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

Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.5% of the time, against 71.9% for the overnight 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 646 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.

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

December is the weak month at 72.5% on time, against 90.9% 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 235 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 79.9%. 9 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 34,000 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
31%
National Airspace System
11%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
1%

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 34,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 33,759 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.5% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 2.20% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

7.3% 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 are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 257 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.1% on time across 2,497 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 2,498 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 90.9% on time and December 72.5%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,441 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

RIC to CLT questions

How often is RIC to CLT delayed?

About one flight in six arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 16.6% of the 2,498 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.

Which airline is most reliable on RIC to CLT?

American Airlines leads at 84.2% on time across 1,996 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 80.0%, a gap of 4 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 RIC to CLT?

The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.9%, 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 December delays on RIC to CLT?

December is the weakest month at 72.5% on time, compared with 90.9% 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. RIC to CLT and CLT to RIC are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures