Route profile
CLT→LAX
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Charlotte to Los Angeles, 2,125 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 44% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 8,171 flights. How this is calculated
CLT → LAX arrives on time 75.8% of the time; the return trip, LAX → CLT, arrives on time 83.6% of the time, a 7.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLT → LAX spends 28.6 minutes on the ground on a 2,125-mile trip: 18.5 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLT and 10.1 minutes from touchdown to gate at LAX.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
On-time performance swings unusually widely by time of day here, wider than 98% of 4,023 comparable routes.
85.5% on time for 9 AM–12 PM departures, against 49.2% for 9 PM–5 AM.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 4,023 in the comparison.
Why CLT → LAX flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLT → LAX cancelled 83 of 8,171 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 98. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 75.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 130 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 83 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
63 cancellations, 75.9% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
16 cancellations, 19.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
4 cancellations, 4.8% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
83 coded cancellations were recorded on CLT → LAX; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
45 min late
against a median of 5 min early
Percentiles over 8,171 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at LAX after arriving from CLT.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 40% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 23% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 7.6% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 4.7% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.02% of the time and diverts 0.10% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 8,080 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 45 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 8,171 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLT → LAX flights departing 9 AM–12 PM arrived on time 85.5% of the time, against 49.2% for 9 PM–5 AM departures, a gap of 36.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 82.6% on time from 981 flights
- 8 AM: 85.4% on time from 471 flights
- 9 AM: 81.8% on time from 590 flights
- 10 AM: 88.2% on time from 167 flights
- 11 AM: 87.3% on time from 1,010 flights
- 12 PM: too few flights to score
- 1 PM: 78.3% on time from 397 flights
- 2 PM: 74.1% on time from 591 flights
- 3 PM: 74.5% on time from 426 flights
- 4 PM: 77.6% on time from 764 flights
- 5 PM: 70.4% on time from 282 flights
- 6 PM: 65.7% on time from 864 flights
- 7 PM: 59.5% on time from 313 flights
- 8 PM: 67.6% on time from 880 flights
- 9 PM: too few flights to score
- 10 PM: 44.6% on time from 217 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why CLT → LAX runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
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 CLT → LAX. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLT → LAX, at 41.0%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 9 AM–12 PM departures arrived on time 85.5% of the time and 9 PM–5 AM departures 49.2%.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 7,660 | 76.9% | 0.77% | -6 min | 7.3% |
| Spirit Airlines | 511 | 58.3% | 4.70% | 9 min | 14.4% |
American Airlines flew 93.7% of the 8,171 flights listed. Spirit Airlines cancelled 4.70% of its flights here against 0.77% for American Airlines.
American Airlines arrived on time 18.6 percentage points more often than Spirit Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
| Flight | Scheduled | Operations | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA352 American Airlines | 1:30 PM | 640 | 77.7% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 5.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 77.5%
- Feb: 78.0%
- Mar: 82.4%
- Apr: 75.8%
- May: 65.2%
- Jun: 67.9%
- Jul: 66.0%
- Aug: 72.5%
- Sep: 81.6%
- Oct: 86.4%
- Nov: 80.8%
- Dec: 80.4%
May is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 21.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 75.9% from 244 flights
- August 2023: 67.9% from 247 flights
- September 2023: 77.5% from 188 flights
- October 2023: 79.3% from 237 flights
- November 2023: 80.7% from 234 flights
- December 2023: 81.1% from 227 flights
- January 2024: 75.7% from 236 flights
- February 2024: 79.4% from 224 flights
- March 2024: 80.3% from 239 flights
- April 2024: 72.7% from 234 flights
- May 2024: 44.7% from 247 flights
- June 2024: 64.7% from 265 flights
- July 2024: 55.1% from 274 flights
- August 2024: 71.5% from 275 flights
- September 2024: 84.5% from 263 flights
- October 2024: 90.0% from 261 flights
- November 2024: 80.3% from 233 flights
- December 2024: 81.3% from 240 flights
- January 2025: 79.9% from 214 flights
- February 2025: 79.9% from 180 flights
- March 2025: 81.3% from 215 flights
- April 2025: 76.6% from 209 flights
- May 2025: 79.1% from 216 flights
- June 2025: 66.3% from 248 flights
- July 2025: 63.1% from 251 flights
- August 2025: 79.6% from 197 flights
- September 2025: 81.8% from 187 flights
- October 2025: 89.9% from 207 flights
- November 2025: 81.6% from 190 flights
- December 2025: 78.7% from 197 flights
- January 2026: 77.0% from 162 flights
- February 2026: 73.8% from 153 flights
- March 2026: 86.4% from 179 flights
- April 2026: 78.9% from 180 flights
- May 2026: 75.5% from 196 flights
- June 2026: 73.7% from 209 flights
- July 2026: 71.6% from 213 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.1% against 77.7% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 8,171 CLT → LAX flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed