Flight profile · American Airlines
AA346
Indianapolis (IND) to Charlotte (CLT) · scheduled 8:05 AM – 9:49 AM
How AA346 performs
622 operations, November 2023 – July 2026.
AA346 arrived on time 85.7% of the time, against 79.3% for all IND → CLT flights, so this departure is 6.4 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 6.5 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 622 operations, November 2023 – July 2026 · If AA346 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA346 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
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Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA346 | 85.7% | 1.29% | -5 min | 3.7% | 622 |
| American Airlines on IND → CLT | 79.2% | 1.43% | -5 min | 7.7% | 5,725 |
| All IND → CLT flights | 79.3% | 1.52% | -5 min | 7.7% | 5,838 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
Why AA346 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA346 on IND → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA346 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA346 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 9.7 hours on the ground at IND, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA346 pushed back an average of 4 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 IND just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 546 of 614 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA346 | 37% | 10% | 7% |
| 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 AA346’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA346 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 November 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves IND late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CLT?
On arrival at CLT, AA346 spends 14.2 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 1.4 minutes longer than a typical CLT arrival (12.8 min).
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 8,438 departures from IND scheduled in the clock hour AA346 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 AA346’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves IND
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA346 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,438 departures from IND are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 147,128 across the whole day.
AA346 is scheduled out of IND at 8:05 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from IND in that hour arrive on time 87.8% of the time against 81.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 6.0 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from IND 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 · November 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA346 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DFW→MEM Dallas–Fort Worth to Memphis | October 7, 2024 – November 4, 2024 | 29 | — |
| MEM→DFW Memphis to Dallas–Fort Worth | October 7, 2024 – November 4, 2024 | 28 | — |
| MCO→PHL Orlando to Philadelphia | September 4, 2024 – October 6, 2024 | 33 | — |
| ORD→BOS Chicago to Boston | May 6, 2024 – June 4, 2024 | 29 | — |
| JAX→MIA Jacksonville to Miami | April 4, 2024 – May 5, 2024 | 32 | — |
| PHL→AUS Philadelphia to Austin | September 6, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 60 | — |
| AUS→PHL Austin to Philadelphia | July 1, 2023 – November 3, 2023 | 122 | 61.5% |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA346 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.
23 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 622 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – July 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2938 | American Airlines | 89.7% | 10 min early | 619 |
| AA346 this flight | American Airlines | 85.7% | 5 min early | 622 |
Every departure listed carries at least 600 operations, so the comparison is between figures that mean something. AA346 is placed in the same ordering rather than left out of it; the rows around it are the most punctual departures on the route, not all of them, so this is a comparison and not a rank. Schedules change; confirm the departure still operates before booking around this.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 622 records of AA346 operating IND → 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
Analysis last recomputed