Flight profile · American Airlines
AA609
Orlando (MCO) to Charlotte (CLT) · scheduled 9:00 AM – 10:51 AM
How AA609 performs
629 operations, November 2023 – August 2026.
Between its first and last recorded date on MCO → CLT, AA609 averaged about 4 operations a week (629 in 1,031 days, cancelled ones included).
AA609 arrived on time 88.3% of the time, against 77.0% for all MCO → CLT flights, so this departure is 11.3 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 10.3 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 629 operations, November 2023 – August 2026 · If AA609 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
What stands out
How AA609 compares to other flight numbers, not just to itself.
This flight runs unusually far ahead of the MCO → CLT route as a whole, better than 92% of 12,358 comparable flight numbers.
88.3% on time for this specific departure, against 77.0% for every MCO → CLT flight.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – August 2026 · The one thing about this specific departure that ranks most extreme against every other published flight number, out of everything FlyerIntel checks — shown only when something clears a real statistical bar, not for every flight.
Where AA609 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA609 | 88.3% | 0.48% | -11 min | 3.2% | 629 |
| American Airlines on MCO → CLT | 78.0% | 1.58% | -7 min | 9.2% | 12,487 |
| All MCO → CLT flights | 77.0% | 1.64% | -7 min | 9.5% | 16,343 |
AA609 cancelled 3 of 629 operations (0.48%), below the 1.64% for MCO → CLT; on a count this small the difference is not a finding.
3.2% of AA609’s arrivals were an hour or more late, against 9.5% across MCO → CLT, so the long delays are less common on this number than on the route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – August 2026
Why AA609 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
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA609 on MCO → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – August 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA609 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA609 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 10.3 hours on the ground at MCO, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA609 pushed back an average of 9 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 1 minute late.
Matched by tail number to the aircraft’s previous flight into MCO: 463 of 626 departures. Unknown, cancelled or diverted inbounds and gaps over 12 hours are left out.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA609 | 41% | 17% | 8% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground usually absorbs a late arrival, but this flight has passed a late inbound on more often than the network does.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AA609’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA609 left 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s.
Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft ranks the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – August 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves MCO late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CLT?
AA609 pushes back an average of 6.3 minutes late and reaches the gate at CLT an average of 0.6 minutes early. The 6.9 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, so on average a late pushback on this flight is made up before the gate. It spends 19.5 minutes on the taxiways at MCO, 1.3 minutes longer than a typical MCO departure in the same hour.
On arrival at CLT, AA609 spends 10.0 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 2.8 minutes shorter than a typical CLT arrival (12.8 min).
Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block; the hourly comparison is 36,348 MCO departures. Taxi-in is landing to gate, set against 633,359 arrivals at CLT. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – August 2026
The hour it leaves MCO
AA609 has one departure time, 9:00 AM, so this is what that hour at MCO is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 36,348 departures from MCO are scheduled in the 9 AM–10 AM hour over the period, against 510,306 across the whole day.
AA609 is scheduled out of MCO at 9:00 AM, in the 9 AM–10 AM bank. Departures from MCO in that hour arrive on time 84.9% of the time against 74.6% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 10.3 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
Both airport figures cover every destination from MCO, so they describe the slot, not this journey; the route comparison is above. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · November 2023 – August 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA609 has flown
Carriers reassign flight numbers. AA609 also served these 8 other city pairs in the period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| LAS→DFW Las Vegas to Dallas–Fort Worth | January 6, 2026 – February 11, 2026 | 37 | — |
| BNA→ORD Nashville to Chicago | July 6, 2023 – September 2, 2025 | 88 | — |
| DFW→ATL Dallas–Fort Worth to Atlanta | August 5, 2024 – January 1, 2025 | 2 | — |
| RSW→DFW Fort Myers to Dallas–Fort Worth | September 4, 2024 – November 4, 2024 | 62 | — |
| LAX→ORD Los Angeles to Chicago | June 5, 2024 – August 4, 2024 | 61 | — |
| ORD→IND Chicago to Indianapolis | April 4, 2024 – June 4, 2024 | 62 | — |
| BWI→CLT Baltimore to Charlotte | August 15, 2023 – November 4, 2023 | 82 | — |
| STL→ORD St. Louis to Chicago | July 1–4, 2023 | 4 | — |
The figures above describe only MCO → CLT, the route AA609 flies now.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
21 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 629 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering November 2023 – August 2026
Other flights on this route
Same airports, same journey, different odds of arriving on time.
| Flight | Airline | On time | Median arrival | Operations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA1896 | American Airlines | 93.8% | 17 min early | 987 |
| AA461 | American Airlines | 89.3% | 10 min early | 985 |
| AA609 this flight | American Airlines | 88.3% | 11 min early | 629 |
Among all 3 departures on this route with at least 600 operations, AA609 has the lowest on-time rate, 5.5 points behind the best. Every departure here has at least 600 operations; the other rows are the most punctual on the route, not all of them.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 629 records of AA609 operating MCO → 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 reported separately, not in the on-time rate.
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