See which airlines at Charlotte Douglas airport have the best on-time departure rates
With vacation season on the horizon, many are planning to hit Charlotte Douglas International Airport for trips across the country and the world. But figuring out which airline to fly with and when to travel can be a complicated decision.
One factor to consider is the odds that your flight will take off on time, something that data can help you determine.
Using data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the graphic below shows how on-time departure rates for major airlines flying out of Charlotte have fared since January 2020. It updates monthly. Flights are considered “delayed” in the data if they were 15 minutes late or more, in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration policy.
Charlotte airport on-time departure rates
Some takeaways from the data:
- The lowest on-time departure rate in the data fell in May 2020, when just 50% of Frontier Airlines flights took off on time.
- Multiple months saw airlines hit a 100% on-time departure rate: Frontier Airlines in April 2020, Spirit Airlines in May 2020 and JetBlue Airways in September 2020, October 2020 and April 2021.
- The summer of 2021 saw multiple airlines dip below a 75% on-time departure rate.
- Delta Airlines had, on average, the steadiest on-time departure rate, never dropping below 80% in the time period.
- American Airlines, which makes up the most traffic at Charlotte’s airport, had an on-time departure rate that ranged between 96.79% and 75.2%.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 9:00 AM.
