Route reliability record
CLE→IAD
Cleveland to Washington
- Flights
- 1,072
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 287 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,072 CLE to IAD flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLE to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 96.4% of the time and Saturday flights 90.3%, against 87.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 98 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,059 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
87.6% on time across 796 flights
These figures cover 1,072 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 CLE to IAD
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 796 | 87.6% | 101 min | 0.38% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 276 | 85.4% | 103 min | 3.26% | A− |
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 Washington
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLE → IADCleveland to Washington | United Airlines | 87.3% | 87.6% | 0.38% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. CLE → BWICleveland to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 83.8% | 84.8% | 1.13% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 3. CLE → DCACleveland to Washington | PSA Airlines | 58.2% | 64.0% | 9.05% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
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 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am281 flights96.4%
- 8am–11am205 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm262 flights81.9%
- 5pm–8pm61 flights86.4%
- 8pm–5am263 flights77.8%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.4% of the time, against 77.8% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 281 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLE to IAD 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 IAD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 96.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 77.8%, a wide gap of 18.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am96.4%
- 8–11am92.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm81.9%
- 5–8pm86.4%
- 8pm–5am77.8%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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 75.3% on time, against 93.8% in October. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 90.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 78.9%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%National Airspace System
- 12%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
51% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 13,874 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 96.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.1% 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 287 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 84.1% on time across 1,076 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,072 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in IAD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,072 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 87.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,059 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to IAD questions
How often is CLE to IAD delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.9% of the 1,072 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CLE to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
87.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLE to IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 96.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 77.8%, 19 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 CLE to IAD?
December is the weakest month at 75.3% on time, compared with 93.8% in October. Across the year that is 19 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
- IAD to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- United Airlines on CLE to IAD87.6%
- Republic Airways on CLE to IAD85.4%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.5%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.4%
- CLE to ATL, a related route84.6%
- United Airlines on-time record87.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record85.4%
- 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 IAD and IAD 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.