Flight profile · American Airlines
AA1651
San Diego (SAN) to Charlotte (CLT) · scheduled 6:15 AM – 1:55 PM
How AA1651 performs
766 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA1651 arrived on time 86.7% of the time, against 81.1% for all SAN → CLT flights, so this departure is 5.6 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 5.6 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 766 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA1651 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA1651 is right now
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1651 | 86.7% | 0.65% | -11 min | 4.6% | 766 |
| American Airlines on SAN → CLT | 81.1% | 0.78% | -8 min | 6.1% | 4,865 |
| All SAN → CLT flights | 81.1% | 0.78% | -8 min | 6.1% | 4,865 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA1651 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA1651 on SAN → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA1651 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA1651 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 8.7 hours on the ground at SAN, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA1651 pushed back an average of 6 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 5 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into SAN just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 593 of 761 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA1651 | 51% | 10% | 9% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AA1651’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA1651 left 15 or more minutes late is about the same as the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves SAN late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CLT?
AA1651 pushes back an average of 12.1 minutes late and reaches the gate at CLT an average of 3.6 minutes late. The 8.5 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. Its 25.0 minutes on the taxiways at SAN is about what any departure from the airport in that hour spends.
On arrival at CLT, AA1651 spends 13.1 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is about what any arrival at CLT spends on the ground before reaching the gate.
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached CLT. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 26,464 departures from SAN scheduled in the clock hour AA1651 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at CLT (618,237 flights), not just AA1651’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves SAN
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA1651 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 26,464 departures from SAN are scheduled in the 6 AM–7 AM hour over the period, against 297,668 across the whole day.
AA1651 is scheduled out of SAN at 6:15 AM, in the 6 AM–7 AM bank. Departures from SAN in that hour arrive on time 92.2% of the time against 77.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 14.2 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from SAN to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA1651 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHX→SBA Phoenix to Santa Barbara | December 18, 2025 – March 6, 2026 | 33 | — |
| FLL→ORD Fort Lauderdale to Chicago | February 17, 2026 – March 3, 2026 | 3 | — |
| LAX→SJC Los Angeles to San Jose | February 9, 2026 | 1 | — |
| PHX→MKE Phoenix to Milwaukee | January 8, 2026 – February 8, 2026 | 16 | — |
| AUS→CLT Austin to Charlotte | December 3–17, 2025 | 15 | — |
| CLT→PHL Charlotte to Philadelphia | December 5, 2024 – March 29, 2025 | 114 | 84.1% |
| CLT→BHM Charlotte to Birmingham | November 28, 2024 | 1 | — |
| LAX→ORD Los Angeles to Chicago | October 6, 2024 | 1 | — |
| ORD→LAX Chicago to Los Angeles | October 6, 2024 | 1 | — |
| DFW→IAH Dallas–Fort Worth to Houston | September 19, 2024 – October 5, 2024 | 5 | — |
| IAH→DFW Houston to Dallas–Fort Worth | September 19, 2024 – October 5, 2024 | 5 | — |
| CLT→JAX Charlotte to Jacksonville | June 5, 2024 – August 28, 2024 | 63 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA1651 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
22 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 766 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 766 records of AA1651 operating SAN → CLT, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
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