Route reliability record
SRQ→CLT
Sarasota to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,345
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 547 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,345 SRQ to CLT flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Best time to fly SRQ to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.2% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.9%, against 85.6% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 83 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,321 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.49%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
89.2% on time across 935 flights
These figures cover 1,345 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 SRQ 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 | 935 | 89.2% | 102 min | 1.82% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 78.5% | 89 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 138 | 75.7% | 59 min | 1.45% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on SRQ to CLT
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Sarasota to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. SRQ → CLTSarasota to Charlotte | American Airlines | 87.6% | 89.2% | 1.82% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1477 08:05 |
| 2. TPA → CLTTampa to Charlotte | American Airlines | 82.3% | 83.6% | 1.52% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 2538 07:15 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am299 flights93.2%
- 8am–11am247 flights90.6%
- 11am–2pm429 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm69 flights89.2%
- 5pm–8pm282 flights78.1%
- 8pm–5am19 flights—
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 93.2% of the time, against 78.1% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 429 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter SRQ 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 SRQ to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.2% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 78.1%, a wide gap of 15.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.2%
- 8–11am90.6%
- 11am–2pm82.0%
- 2–5pm89.2%
- 5–8pm78.1%
- 8pm–5am—
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 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.
July is the worst month at 76.1% 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. November was the busiest month here, with 149 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 79.3%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 36%Carrier
- 11%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,211 reported delay minutes.
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 17,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.49% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 547 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.4% on time across 1,346 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,345 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 94.0% on time and July 76.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,321 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
SRQ to CLT questions
How often is SRQ 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 14.4% of the 1,345 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is SRQ to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
85.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 8 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on SRQ to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 78.1%, 15 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 SRQ to CLT?
July is the weakest month at 76.1% 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.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to SRQ — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on SRQ to CLT89.2%
- PSA Airlines on SRQ to CLT78.5%
- Envoy Air on SRQ to CLT75.7%
- SRQ to ATL, a related route87.8%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- SRQ to BWI, a related route83.8%
- American Airlines on-time record89.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record78.5%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.7%
- 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. SRQ to CLT and CLT to SRQ 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.