Cleveland, OH · departure reliability
CLE
Cleveland Hopkins International
- Departures
- 40,176
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 12
- US rank
- #46 by volume
Cleveland
Cleveland Hopkins International lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 40,176 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,443 at 87.6% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the twelve carriers covered here at 87.6% on time across 3,443 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.30%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
87.6% on time here
These figures cover 40,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.6% of the time; Alaska Airlines manages 65.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 459 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 8,816 | 84.9% | 77 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 6,246 | 75.1% | 80 min | 1.54% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 5,397 | 82.5% | 58 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Republic Airways | 4,868 | 79.0% | 74 min | 4.77% | B− |
| American Airlines | 4,334 | 78.5% | 101 min | 2.35% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,443 | 87.6% | 77 min | 1.86% | A |
| PSA Airlines | 2,368 | 69.2% | 114 min | 8.28% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,941 | 72.0% | 112 min | 2.32% | C |
| Envoy Air | 1,105 | 70.3% | 68 min | 3.71% | C− |
| JetBlue Airways | 802 | 72.7% | 74 min | 2.12% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 459 | 65.1% | 59 min | 2.40% | C |
| Spirit Airlines | 397 | 74.2% | 79 min | 3.02% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of CLE
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from CLE, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 79.4%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CLE to ORD · Chicago | 4,941 | 74.3% | 89 min | 3.14% | C− |
| CLE to ATL · Atlanta | 3,390 | 85.4% | 72 min | 2.15% | A |
| CLE to EWR · Newark | 2,116 | 80.0% | 95 min | 3.26% | B− |
| CLE to MCO · Orlando | 2,009 | 77.9% | 88 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| CLE to LGA · New York | 1,854 | 75.6% | 76 min | 6.09% | B− |
| CLE to DEN · Denver | 1,835 | 80.9% | 63 min | 0.38% | B+ |
| CLE to CLT · Charlotte | 1,811 | 80.7% | 102 min | 2.32% | B |
| CLE to BOS · Boston | 1,701 | 78.3% | 72 min | 2.18% | B |
| CLE to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,670 | 75.3% | 93 min | 2.51% | B |
| CLE to DCA · Washington | 1,609 | 64.7% | 104 min | 8.02% | D− |
| CLE to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,115 | 80.4% | 75 min | 1.88% | B |
| CLE to MDW · Chicago | 1,108 | 82.3% | 56 min | 0.90% | B+ |
| CLE to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,102 | 75.2% | 102 min | 6.17% | B− |
| CLE to BNA · Nashville | 1,051 | 84.6% | 63 min | 0.76% | B+ |
| CLE to TPA · Tampa | 982 | 78.5% | 72 min | 1.22% | B |
| CLE to IAD · Washington | 980 | 86.8% | 82 min | 0.92% | A+ |
| CLE to LAS · Las Vegas | 975 | 78.1% | 78 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| CLE to BWI · Baltimore | 969 | 85.7% | 60 min | 1.44% | A |
| CLE to DTW · Detroit | 947 | 78.4% | 114 min | 0.63% | B+ |
| CLE to PHX · Phoenix | 933 | 78.7% | 58 min | 0.75% | B+ |
| CLE to RSW · Fort Myers | 911 | 83.9% | 73 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| CLE to IAH · Houston | 827 | 89.1% | 53 min | 0.24% | A+ |
| CLE to MIA · Miami | 803 | 80.3% | 104 min | 1.37% | B |
| CLE to STL · St. Louis | 705 | 84.7% | 57 min | 0.14% | B+ |
| CLE to LAX · Los Angeles | 702 | 88.6% | 55 min | 0.14% | A+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave CLE
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 26 points, against 23 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am10,434 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am6,272 flights86.8%
- 11am–2pm6,269 flights80.3%
- 2pm–5pm7,863 flights75.2%
- 5pm–8pm7,189 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am2,149 flights63.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 63.7% on time, against 89.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
When CLE runs late
CLE's year swings by 15 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 71.2% on time, against 85.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.4%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why CLE gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 663,000 reported delay minutes.
- 38%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 27%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
38% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 663,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.30% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the an hour and a half kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
40,176 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.8% on time and December 71.2%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
CLE delay questions
How often is Cleveland (CLE) delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.6% of the 40,176 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Cleveland (CLE)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.6% on time across 3,443 flights. Alaska Airlines is at the other end on 65.1%, a gap of 23 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Cleveland (CLE)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 63.7%, 26 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Cleveland (CLE)?
December is the weakest month at 71.2% on time, compared with 85.8% in September. Across the year that is 15 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.