Route reliability record
SAT→CLT
San Antonio to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,376
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,095 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 9 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.3 hours. That rests on 1,376 SAT to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly SAT to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 91.4%, against 86.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 9 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 90 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
86.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,349 completed flights
Avg delay
139 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.89%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
86.6% on time across 1,376 flights
These figures cover 1,376 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 11 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 SAT to CLT
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 1,376 | 86.6% | 139 min | 1.89% | A |
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 14 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–8am362 flights90.4%
- 8am–11am544 flights88.6%
- 11am–2pm150 flights89.7%
- 2pm–5pm128 flights78.9%
- 5pm–8pm192 flights76.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.4% of the time, against 76.1% for the evening window. That is 14 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 544 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 12 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 80.2% on time, 12 points below December, the best at 92.5%. 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 124 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 91.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 81.3%. 10 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 25,000 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
- 39%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%Extreme weather
- 5%National Airspace System
39% 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 25,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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 25,121 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 12,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.89% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.3% 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 last about 2.3 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,095 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 77.0% on time across 1,377 flights, 10 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 10 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,376 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. December runs 92.5% on time and July 80.2%, a swing of 12 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,349 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SAT to CLT questions
How often is SAT to CLT delayed?
About one flight in seven arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 13.4% of the 1,376 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 2.3 hours on average.
How reliable is SAT to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
86.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 9 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SAT to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.1%, 14 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 SAT to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 80.2% on time, compared with 92.5% in December. Across the year that is 12 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 SAT — the return legseparate record
- San Antonio International (SAT) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- SAT to DFW, a related route77.1%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.4%
- SAT to DEN, a related route81.0%
- American Airlines on-time record86.6%
- 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. SAT to CLT and CLT to SAT 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.