Route profile
CLT→PHL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Charlotte to Philadelphia, 449 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 10% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 11,585 flights. How this is calculated
CLT → PHL arrives on time 72.7% of the time; the return trip, PHL → CLT, arrives on time 77.4% of the time, a 4.8-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLT → PHL spends 28.3 minutes on the ground on a 449-mile trip: 20.1 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLT and 8.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at PHL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why CLT → PHL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLT → PHL cancelled 264 of 11,585 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 44. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 78.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 56 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 264 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.
206 cancellations, 78.0% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
48 cancellations, 18.2% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
10 cancellations, 3.8% 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.
264 coded cancellations were recorded on CLT → PHL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
62 min late
against a median of 2 min early
CLT → PHL has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 2 min early, but the worst tenth are 64 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 11,585 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at PHL after arriving from CLT.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 45% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 27% | High risk |
| 60 min | 18% | High risk |
| 90 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.6% | Some 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 2.28% of the time and diverts 0.12% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,307 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 62 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 11,585 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLT → PHL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 85.3% of the time, against 61.0% for 3–6 PM departures, a gap of 24.3 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 91.1% on time from 283 flights
- 7 AM: 84.6% on time from 740 flights
- 8 AM: 83.4% on time from 789 flights
- 9 AM: 84.4% on time from 570 flights
- 10 AM: 84.1% on time from 509 flights
- 11 AM: 80.7% on time from 1,084 flights
- 12 PM: 79.0% on time from 173 flights
- 1 PM: 79.7% on time from 1,135 flights
- 2 PM: 72.7% on time from 483 flights
- 3 PM: 57.5% on time from 1,045 flights
- 4 PM: 62.2% on time from 1,000 flights
- 5 PM: 71.5% on time from 245 flights
- 6 PM: 60.8% on time from 999 flights
- 7 PM: 71.5% on time from 200 flights
- 8 PM: 61.8% on time from 758 flights
- 9 PM: 70.5% on time from 230 flights
- 10 PM: 66.2% on time from 1,183 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why CLT → PHL 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 → PHL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLT → PHL, at 52.6%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 85.3% of the time and 3–6 PM departures 61.0%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of CLT to PHL: 4.6 times the normal rate at CLT and 4.3 times at PHL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: CLT 5.7% against 1.2%, PHL 6.5% against 1.5%. Flights that did leave PHL in bad weather arrived on time 64.3% of the time, against 78.2% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | CLT | PHL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 5.7% | 6.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.2% | 1.5% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 63.5% | 64.3% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 75.9% | 78.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 55,311 | 32,038 |
American Airlines (5.3% cancelled against 6.4% for the other carriers at CLT) cancelled fewer departures from CLT in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at CLT
All departures from CLT| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 33,044 | 5.3%below the others | 6.4% |
| Frontier Airlines | 812 | 6.7%about level | 6.0% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from CLT and PHL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from CLT on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: CLT (airlines), PHL, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
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 | 9,354 | 74.5% | 1.92% | -3 min | 8.8% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,094 | 63.6% | 3.92% | 2 min | 17.1% |
American Airlines flew 81.7% of the 11,448 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 3.92% of its flights here against 1.92% for American Airlines.
American Airlines arrived on time 10.9 percentage points more often than Frontier 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| F91384 Frontier Airlines | 3:49 PM | 748 | 61.3% |
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 12.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 76.2%
- Feb: 78.9%
- Mar: 73.0%
- Apr: 74.0%
- May: 67.8%
- Jun: 69.0%
- Jul: 62.5%
- Aug: 69.3%
- Sep: 72.5%
- Oct: 75.4%
- Nov: 79.7%
- Dec: 76.0%
July is historically the weakest month and November the strongest, a spread of 17.2 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 62.8% from 273 flights
- August 2023: 68.2% from 327 flights
- September 2023: 70.9% from 340 flights
- October 2023: 79.7% from 363 flights
- November 2023: 82.2% from 320 flights
- December 2023: 81.1% from 301 flights
- January 2024: 68.6% from 317 flights
- February 2024: 77.1% from 301 flights
- March 2024: 68.5% from 345 flights
- April 2024: 69.2% from 329 flights
- May 2024: 61.3% from 344 flights
- June 2024: 63.8% from 333 flights
- July 2024: 52.5% from 336 flights
- August 2024: 64.1% from 341 flights
- September 2024: 66.5% from 341 flights
- October 2024: 67.6% from 365 flights
- November 2024: 76.1% from 323 flights
- December 2024: 74.5% from 314 flights
- January 2025: 80.4% from 323 flights
- February 2025: 79.6% from 292 flights
- March 2025: 78.0% from 330 flights
- April 2025: 74.0% from 294 flights
- May 2025: 60.6% from 337 flights
- June 2025: 67.1% from 287 flights
- July 2025: 67.0% from 289 flights
- August 2025: 76.2% from 284 flights
- September 2025: 81.4% from 291 flights
- October 2025: 79.7% from 306 flights
- November 2025: 81.1% from 305 flights
- December 2025: 72.5% from 303 flights
- January 2026: 80.2% from 296 flights
- February 2026: 80.4% from 260 flights
- March 2026: 72.7% from 300 flights
- April 2026: 79.4% from 292 flights
- May 2026: 83.4% from 297 flights
- June 2026: 76.8% from 287 flights
- July 2026: 69.1% from 299 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 77.7% against 71.2% in the 12 months before — improving by 6.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 11,585 CLT → PHL 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