Route reliability record
ATL→CLE
Atlanta to Cleveland
- Flights
- 3,398
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 554 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,398 ATL to CLE flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 2,680 at 81.8% on time.
Best time to fly ATL to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.5%, against 79.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,324 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.00%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.8% on time across 2,680 flights
These figures cover 3,398 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 81.8% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 68.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 718 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,680 | 81.8% | 53 min | 1.87% | B |
| Frontier Airlines | 718 | 68.7% | 69 min | 2.51% | C |
The spread between Delta and Frontier is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to CLE
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Atlanta to Cleveland
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. ATL → CLEAtlanta to Cleveland | Delta Air Lines | 80.3% | 81.8% | 1.87% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 2545 13:45 |
| 2. ATL → CLEAtlanta to Cleveland | Frontier Airlines | 67.0% | 68.7% | 2.51% | 11am–2pm, Thu | F9 2410 09:56 |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am269 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am619 flights83.4%
- 11am–2pm568 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm529 flights78.4%
- 5pm–8pm568 flights73.3%
- 8pm–5am845 flights72.1%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.1% of the time, against 72.1% for the overnight window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 845 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to CLE by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.1% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 72.1%, a wide gap of 17.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.1%
- 8–11am83.4%
- 11am–2pm86.0%
- 2–5pm78.4%
- 5–8pm73.3%
- 8pm–5am72.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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.
July is the worst month at 66.3% on time, 26 points below September, the best at 92.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. June was the busiest month here, with 323 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.1%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route 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 41,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Late-arriving aircraft
- 40%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
40% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 41,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 40,540 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 41,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.00% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 554 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.6% on time across 3,398 flights, 6 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,398 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 92.0% on time and July 66.3%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,324 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to CLE questions
How often is ATL to CLE delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.0% of the 3,398 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to CLE?
Delta Air Lines leads at 81.8% on time across 2,680 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 68.7%, a gap of 13 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 ATL to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 72.1%, 17 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 July delays on ATL to CLE?
July is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 92.0% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- CLE to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to CLE81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to CLE68.7%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record68.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. ATL to CLE and CLE to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.