Route reliability record
SEA→CLT
Seattle to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,302
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,279 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,302 SEA to CLT flights, with a median arrival 15 minutes early.
Best time to fly SEA to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Friday flights 92.0%, against 87.3% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 100 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,282 completed flights
Avg delay
116 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.23%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
87.3% on time across 1,302 flights
These figures cover 1,302 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 15 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 SEA 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 | 1,302 | 87.3% | 116 min | 1.23% | A |
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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.
- 5am–8am459 flights92.1%
- 8am–11am113 flights77.7%
- 11am–2pm320 flights81.8%
- 2pm–5pm29 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am381 flights89.6%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 77.7% for the morning 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 459 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SEA 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 SEA to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 8am–11am at 77.7%, a wide gap of 14.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.1%
- 8–11am77.7%
- 11am–2pm81.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am89.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
August is the worst month at 81.1% on time, 16 points below March, the best at 96.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 92.0% on time and Saturday the weakest at 84.1%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 59% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Carrier
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 18,832 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 92.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.23% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.31%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.0% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 2,279 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 67.5% on time across 1,302 flights, 20 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 20 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,302 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. March runs 96.7% on time and August 81.1%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,282 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SEA to CLT questions
How often is SEA to CLT delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.7% of the 1,302 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is SEA to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
87.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SEA to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 8am–11am window is the weakest at 77.7%, 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 August delays on SEA to CLT?
August is the weakest month at 81.1% on time, compared with 96.7% in March. Across the year that is 16 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 SEA — the return legseparate record
- Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- SEA to LAX, a related route82.0%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- SEA to PHX, a related route78.2%
- American Airlines on-time record87.3%
- 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. SEA to CLT and CLT to SEA 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.