Route reliability record
CLE→CLT
Cleveland to Charlotte
- Flights
- 1,780
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 430 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 3 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 close to two hours on average. That rests on 1,780 CLE to CLT flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLE to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 90.4%, against 79.9% 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
79.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,740 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
82.2% on time across 1,407 flights
These figures cover 1,780 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLE to CLT
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 60 | 85.0% | 106 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,407 | 82.2% | 100 min | 1.35% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 303 | 69.6% | 113 min | 6.27% | C− |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 10 | 20.0% | 44 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLE to CLT
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cleveland to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 2 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLE → CLTCleveland to Charlotte | American Airlines | 81.1% | 82.2% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 2021 08:06 |
| 2. CAK → CLTAkron to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 78.0% | 79.9% | 2.32% | 5am–8am, Wed | OH 5495 06:19 |
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 27 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am334 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am504 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm388 flights77.0%
- 2pm–5pm253 flights74.3%
- 5pm–8pm301 flights63.6%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 63.6% on time, against 90.7% 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 504 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLE to CLT 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 CLE to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 63.6%, a wide gap of 27.1 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.7%
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm77.0%
- 2–5pm74.3%
- 5–8pm63.6%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
June is the worst month at 70.9% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 91.5%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 175 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Saturday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 44% of the 36,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Carrier
- 43%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
43% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 36,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 35,718 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 36,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 2.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% 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 close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 430 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.7% on time across 1,780 flights, 6 points below 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 1,780 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 CLT 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 91.5% on time and June 70.9%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,740 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to CLT questions
How often is CLE to CLT 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 20.1% of the 1,780 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CLE to CLT compared with the rest of the country?
79.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLE to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 63.6%, 27 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 June delays on CLE to CLT?
June is the weakest month at 70.9% on time, compared with 91.5% in September. Across the year that is 21 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
- CLT to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLE to CLT82.2%
- PSA Airlines on CLE to CLT69.6%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.5%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- CLE to ATL, a related route84.6%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record85.0%
- American Airlines on-time record82.2%
- PSA Airlines on-time record69.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLE to CLT and CLT to CLE are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CLE to CLT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.