American Airlines is reportedly piloting a new way of handling rolling delays by estimating boarding times based on the arrival time of the inbound aircraft. The program will initially be trialed at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), American’s second-largest hub, ahead of a possible rollout across the carrier’s network.

American’s status updates have continued to measure delays against scheduled departure times, often creating a significant disparity between displayed and actual departures. Frequent flyers have complained about this for years, while the airline’s wider reliability record also continues to attract criticism.

American Airlines To Pilot Rolling Delay Program At Charlotte

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The new scheme was first reported by aviation insider JonNYC, who wrote on Friday that the Fort Worth-based carrier plans to devise its estimated boarding times based on the “arrival time of the inbound aircraft.” This will ultimately give passengers a more accurate picture of their likely boarding times, rather than relying on guesswork.

Although some travelers are tech-savvy enough to check flight trackers for up-to-date information, many are not, so more accurate centralized updates will prove a major help. At this stage, it isn’t known when the trial begins or for how long it will last. Simple Flying contacted American Airlines for a statement, but a representative could not be reached before publication.

American has faced significant criticism for its subpar reliability in recent years. The airline came in sixth among North American carriers in Cirium’s 2025 on-time performance report, with 76.43% of its flights arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. It has made improvements during the first half of 2026, but still trails behind major rivals Delta Air Lines and United Airlines.

Step-By-Step Improvements For Delays

Credit: American Airlines

Earlier this year, American rolled out improvements to its app and website for delays, providing customers with more details behind their flight delay. For example, updates would state the cause of the delays, such as maintenance or weather, as well as implementing push notifications, emails, and text messages for added convenience.

However, many customers continue to complain about the airline’s struggles during periods of rolling delays. These types of delays are defined by a succession of small delay updates rather than one large estimate, so the departure time keeps pushing back. This forces passengers to wait around the gate area, not knowing whether the latest delay estimate is accurate or not.

For example, Washington Post travel writer Andrea Sachs recently wrote about her experience of missing an American flight from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) due to the airline’s inaccurate delay updates. With a 5:00 PM departure continually pushed back, Sachs left the gate area to fetch a coffee before returning to find out that boarding had already closed without receiving any notification of the flight’s impending departure.

Charlotte Trial Could Lead To Wider Rollout

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As one of the world’s busiest airports in terms of flight movements, Charlotte is an ideal proving ground to test the program’s effectiveness. American handles around 1,400 daily arrivals and departures from the airport and manages around 90% of its gates. The airport is also a busy connecting hub, where American funnels customers through to its wider network.

Despite its efforts to improve customer service, American faced significant flak last month when many of its customers reported they were rebooked onto other flights without their consent by American’s AI system. The system was apparently booking many customers onto later flights, even if they still had sufficient connecting time to make their existing departure.

The carrier has also expanded its ‘Connect Assist’ tool for passengers at risk of missing tight connection times. This tool is capable of holding flights briefly (usually ten minutes or less) for those who may have just missed their connection window. This was initially trialed at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Charlotte before it was rolled out at additional airports.