Carrier route record
AAROC→CLT
American Airlines · Rochester to Charlotte
- Flights
- 823
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 82%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on ROC to CLT lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 823 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on ROC to CLT from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 806 completed flights
Avg delay
110 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.94%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
81.7%
Every carrier on ROC to CLT, 998 flights
These figures cover 823 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on ROC to CLT
American flew 823 of the 998 flights on ROC to CLT, most of the route. Its 80.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 80.8%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 6 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 169 | 85.7% | 48 min | 0.59% | A+ |
| American Airlines (this page) | 823 | 80.8% | 110 min | 1.94% | B |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am361 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm138 flights79.9%
- 2pm–5pm48 flights87.0%
- 5pm–8pm276 flights71.9%
- 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 71.9% for the evening window. That is 15 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 361 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on ROC to CLT through the year
December is the weak month at 68.8% on time, against 89.8% in August. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 88 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.6%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 17,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 39%Carrier
- 7%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
51% 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 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 17 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 16,967 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 39%, 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 6,612 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.94% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.9% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 573 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.0% on time across 823 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 823 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking American on ROC to CLT
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 823 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.8% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 806 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ROC to CLT, every carrier
- American on CLT to ROC, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on ROC to CLT85.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.