Route reliability record

SAV→CLT

Savannah to Charlotte

Flights: 2,070
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 213 mi
Carriers: 3

This route earns a 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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,070 flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 1,446 at 87.3% on time.

Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 78 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.

On time

85.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,034 completed flights

Avg delay

84 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.64%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

PSA

87.3% on time across 1,446 flights

These figures cover 2,070 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 14 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 SAV to CLT

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. PSA Airlines arrives on time 87.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 80.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 596 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on SAV to CLT
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	28	96.4%	19 min	0.00%	A+
PSA Airlines	1,446	87.3%	83 min	2.21%	A
American Airlines	596	80.3%	86 min	0.34%	B+

PSA leads American by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.

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 21 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am690 flights93.3%
8am–11am298 flights89.5%
11am–2pm367 flights87.7%
2pm–5pm292 flights77.7%
5pm–8pm260 flights73.6%
8pm–5am163 flights71.9%

Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.3% of the time, against 71.9% for the overnight window. That is 21 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 690 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.October best, July worst

July is the worst month at 76.3% on time, 18 points below October, the best at 94.0%. 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 235 flights.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.5%. 7 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 65% 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
65%
Carrier
25%
National Airspace System
7%
Extreme weather
4%
Security
0%

65% 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 18 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 24,876 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 93.3% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.64% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.10%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

6.6% 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 213 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 76.5% on time across 2,074 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.

The sample behind these figures is 2,070 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. October runs 94.0% on time and July 76.3%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 2,034 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

SAV to CLT questions

How often is SAV to CLT delayed?

About one flight in seven arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 14.6% of the 2,070 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 SAV to CLT?

PSA Airlines leads at 87.3% on time across 1,446 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 80.3%, a gap of 7 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 SAV to CLT?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.9%, 21 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 SAV to CLT?

July is the weakest month at 76.3% on time, compared with 94.0% in October. 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. SAV to CLT and CLT to SAV 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