Route profile
CLT→STL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Charlotte to St. Louis, 575 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 34% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 6,027 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
CLT → STL arrives on time 75.7% of the time; the return trip, STL → CLT, arrives on time 80.7% of the time, a 4.9-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLT → STL spends 25.1 minutes on the ground on a 575-mile trip: 18.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLT and 7.0 minutes from touchdown to gate at STL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where CLT to STL differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
CLT to STL struggles most at 8 PM: 59.3% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 8.4 points behind the 67.7% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 8.1 points.
Saturday is the day CLT to STL slips furthest against routes of similar length, 74.3% on time where they average 79.9%, 5.6 points lower. Against all other routes the gap is 4.8 points.
In May, CLT to STL runs 8 points below routes of similar length, 67.5% on time to 75.5%. Against all other routes the gap is 7.8 points.
CLT to STL against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 8 PM departures | 59.3% | routes of similar length | 67.7% | −8.4 pts | 150 here, 86,746 there |
| Weekday: Saturday | 74.3% | routes of similar length | 79.9% | −5.6 pts | 771 here, 230,312 there |
| Month: May | 67.5% | routes of similar length | 75.5% | −8.0 pts | 499 here, 158,036 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 575 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why CLT → STL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLT → STL cancelled 71 of 6,027 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 85. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 88.7% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 96 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 71 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, 88.7% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
4 cancellations, 5.6% 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, 5.6% 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.
71 coded cancellations were recorded on CLT → STL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
51 min late
against a median of 3 min early
Percentiles over 6,027 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at STL after arriving from CLT.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 42% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 23% | High risk |
| 60 min | 16% | High risk |
| 90 min | 8.8% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.2% | 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 1.18% of the time and diverts 0.23% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 5,942 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 51 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 6,027 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLT → STL flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 87.8% of the time, against 66.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 21.1 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 6 AM: too few flights to score
- 7 AM: 87.8% on time from 762 flights
- 8 AM: 87.6% on time from 250 flights
- 9 AM to 10 AM: too few flights to score
- 11 AM: 81.9% on time from 568 flights
- 12 PM: 84.1% on time from 496 flights
- 1 PM: 81.0% on time from 335 flights
- 2 PM: 73.5% on time from 302 flights
- 3 PM: 68.7% on time from 149 flights
- 4 PM: 69.3% on time from 648 flights
- 5 PM: 75.2% on time from 332 flights
- 6 PM: 67.5% on time from 1,040 flights
- 7 PM: too few flights to score
- 8 PM: 59.3% on time from 153 flights
- 9 PM: too few flights to score
- 10 PM: 68.9% on time from 688 flights
- 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why CLT → STL 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 → STL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLT → STL, at 54.6%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 87.8% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 66.7%.
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 | 4,924 | 74.8% | 1.26% | -3 min | 9.6% |
| Southwest Airlines | 992 | 79.2% | 0.40% | -3 min | 5.9% |
American Airlines flew 83.2% of the 5,916 flights listed.
Southwest Airlines arrived on time 4.4 percentage points more often than American Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Wednesday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 9.0 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 80.0%
- Feb: 84.7%
- Mar: 74.7%
- Apr: 74.0%
- May: 67.5%
- Jun: 71.0%
- Jul: 66.2%
- Aug: 69.9%
- Sep: 83.3%
- Oct: 83.0%
- Nov: 84.6%
- Dec: 75.8%
July is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 18.5 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 65.9% from 178 flights
- August 2023: 70.1% from 168 flights
- September 2023: 81.5% from 153 flights
- October 2023: 81.5% from 173 flights
- November 2023: 82.7% from 173 flights
- December 2023: 73.8% from 146 flights
- January 2024: 72.2% from 147 flights
- February 2024: 86.7% from 143 flights
- March 2024: 75.5% from 155 flights
- April 2024: 68.6% from 176 flights
- May 2024: 51.4% from 184 flights
- June 2024: 69.1% from 179 flights
- July 2024: 59.8% from 182 flights
- August 2024: 68.4% from 157 flights
- September 2024: 82.2% from 179 flights
- October 2024: 85.6% from 174 flights
- November 2024: 85.0% from 147 flights
- December 2024: 78.0% from 177 flights
- January 2025: 82.2% from 169 flights
- February 2025: 85.3% from 152 flights
- March 2025: 74.7% from 183 flights
- April 2025: 74.4% from 177 flights
- May 2025: 73.2% from 181 flights
- June 2025: 65.1% from 169 flights
- July 2025: 63.7% from 171 flights
- August 2025: 71.0% from 163 flights
- September 2025: 86.3% from 154 flights
- October 2025: 81.9% from 161 flights
- November 2025: 86.3% from 162 flights
- December 2025: 75.2% from 166 flights
- January 2026: 85.6% from 155 flights
- February 2026: 81.7% from 135 flights
- March 2026: 73.8% from 128 flights
- April 2026: 81.1% from 123 flights
- May 2026: 81.3% from 139 flights
- June 2026: 79.0% from 169 flights
- July 2026: 75.4% from 179 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.8% against 76.4% in the 12 months before — improving by 3.4 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 6,027 CLT → STL 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