Route reliability record
RIC→CLT
Richmond to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,456
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 257 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 2,456 RIC to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,951 at 84.7% on time.
Best time to fly RIC to CLT: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.7%, against 82.9% 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 56 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,404 completed flights
Avg delay
85 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
84.7% on time across 1,951 flights
These figures cover 2,456 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on RIC to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 84.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 75.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 417 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 57 | 86.3% | 53 min | 10.53% | A− |
| American Airlines | 1,951 | 84.7% | 86 min | 1.64% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 417 | 75.2% | 83 min | 2.16% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 31 | 69.0% | 113 min | 6.45% | C− |
American leads PSA by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Richmond to Charlotte
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. RIC → CLTRichmond to Charlotte | American Airlines | 83.3% | 84.7% | 1.64% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. RIC → CLTRichmond to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 73.6% | 75.2% | 2.16% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
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 18 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am662 flights88.5%
- 8am–11am349 flights90.1%
- 11am–2pm362 flights84.3%
- 2pm–5pm427 flights77.4%
- 5pm–8pm447 flights78.0%
- 8pm–5am209 flights72.5%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 90.1% of the time, against 72.5% 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 662 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter RIC 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 RIC to CLT, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 90.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.5%, a wide gap of 17.6 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am88.5%
- 8–11am90.1%
- 11am–2pm84.3%
- 2–5pm77.4%
- 5–8pm78.0%
- 8pm–5am72.5%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 20 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 70.6% on time, 20 points below September, the best at 90.9%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 224 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.2%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 54% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
54% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 34,916 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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.00% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.1% 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 an hour and a half, 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 2,455 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 2,456 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 90.9% on time and July 70.6%, a swing of 20 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,404 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 arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.1% of the 2,456 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% 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 84.7% on time across 1,951 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 75.2%, a gap of 10 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 90.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.5%, 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 RIC to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 70.6% on time, compared with 90.9% in September. Across the year that is 20 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 RIC — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on RIC to CLT84.7%
- PSA Airlines on RIC to CLT75.2%
- RIC to ATL, a related route88.5%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- RIC to LGA, a related route73.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record86.3%
- American Airlines on-time record84.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record75.2%
- 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. 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.
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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.