Route reliability record
CLE→FLL
Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale
- Flights
- 1,164
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,062 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route lands a B, 3 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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,164 CLE to FLL flights, of which United Airlines flew 506 at 90.4% on time.
Best time to fly CLE to FLL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.9%, against 80.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
80.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,136 completed flights
Avg delay
81 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
90.4% on time across 506 flights
These figures cover 1,164 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLE to FLL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 90.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 75.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 425 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 506 | 90.4% | 68 min | 0.79% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 425 | 75.4% | 90 min | 1.88% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 232 | 68.6% | 75 min | 4.74% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 0.0% | 124 min | 0.00% | F+ |
The spread between United and Frontier is 15 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 15 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLE to FLL
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale
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 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLE → FLLCleveland to Fort Lauderdale | United Airlines | 89.7% | 90.4% | 0.79% | 5am–8am, Fri | UA 715 07:00 |
| 2. CLE → MIACleveland to Miami | American Airlines | 84.9% | 85.8% | 1.10% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. CLE → FLLCleveland to Fort Lauderdale | Frontier Airlines | 74.0% | 75.4% | 1.88% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
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 25 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am463 flights90.1%
- 8am–11am183 flights81.0%
- 11am–2pm116 flights81.4%
- 2pm–5pm183 flights73.7%
- 5pm–8pm187 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am32 flights67.7%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 64.8% on time, against 90.1% 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 463 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
May is the best month on the calendar at 91.9% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 160 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.3%. 24 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 18,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%National Airspace System
- 22%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
47% 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 18,000 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 split is drawn from 17,711 reported delay minutes.
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 90.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.43%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,062 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 78.8% on time across 1,164 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,164 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 FLL 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. May runs 91.9% on time and March 69.3%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,136 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to FLL questions
How often is CLE to FLL 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 19.4% of the 1,164 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLE to FLL?
United Airlines leads at 90.4% on time across 506 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 75.4%, a gap of 15 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 CLE to FLL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 64.8%, 25 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 March delays on CLE to FLL?
March is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 91.9% in May. Across the year that is 23 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
- FLL to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- United Airlines on CLE to FLL90.4%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to FLL75.4%
- Spirit Airlines on CLE to FLL68.6%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.6%
- ATL to FLL, a related route70.7%
- CLE to ATL, a related route85.4%
- United Airlines on-time record90.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record75.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record68.6%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLE to FLL and FLL to CLE 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.