Carrier route record
UACLE→EWR
United Airlines · Cleveland to Newark
- Flights
- 1,426
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on CLE to EWR lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,426 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on CLE to EWR from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,393 completed flights
Avg delay
108 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
80.3%
Every carrier on CLE to EWR, 2,163 flights
These figures cover 1,426 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% 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
United against every carrier on CLE to EWR
United flew 1,426 of the 2,163 flights on CLE to EWR, most of the route. Its 79.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 81.3% to United at 79.8%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 737 | 81.3% | 56 min | 5.29% | B− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,426 | 79.8% | 108 min | 2.10% | B |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on CLE to EWR
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 41 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am378 flights93.0%
- 8am–11am348 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm280 flights81.5%
- 2pm–5pm143 flights65.2%
- 5pm–8pm270 flights52.1%
- 8pm–5am7 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 52.1% on time, against 93.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 378 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on CLE to EWR through the year
July is the worst month at 63.7% on time, 32 points below February, the best at 96.1%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 165 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.3%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. National Airspace System accounts for 55% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 55%National Airspace System
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 15%Carrier
- 2%Extreme weather
55% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 17,000 minutes out of 30,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 30,463 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 404 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 74.5% on time across 1,428 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,426 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on CLE to EWR
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. February runs 96.1% on time and July 63.7%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,393 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to EWR, every carrier
- United on EWR to CLE, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLE to EWR81.3%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.