Route reliability record
SFO→CLT
San Francisco to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,492
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 2,296 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,492 SFO to CLT flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly SFO to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 90.3%, against 83.6% 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 63 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,472 completed flights
Avg delay
118 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
83.6% on time across 1,492 flights
These figures cover 1,492 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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 SFO 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 | 1,492 | 83.6% | 118 min | 1.14% | B |
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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 18 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am349 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am352 flights80.6%
- 11am–2pm294 flights75.8%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am497 flights82.8%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 75.8% on time against 94.2% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 497 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SFO 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 SFO to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.2% on time and the worst is 11am–2pm at 75.8%, a wide gap of 18.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.2%
- 8–11am80.6%
- 11am–2pm75.8%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am82.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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 69.0% on time, 23 points below October, the best at 91.9%. 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 148 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 77.5%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 49% of the 29,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 49%Carrier
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%National Airspace System
- 1%Security
- 1%Extreme weather
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 29,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 43 to one. The split is drawn from 28,648 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 49%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 14,000 of the 29,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.8% 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 2,296 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 65.6% on time across 1,492 flights, 18 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 18 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,492 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. October runs 91.9% on time and July 69.0%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,472 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SFO to CLT questions
How often is SFO 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 16.4% of the 1,492 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is SFO to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
83.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SFO to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.2% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 75.8%, 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 SFO to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 91.9% in October. Across the year that is 23 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 SFO — the return legseparate record
- San Francisco International (SFO) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- SFO to SEA, a related route72.3%
- American Airlines on-time record83.6%
- 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. SFO to CLT and CLT to SFO 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.