Route reliability record
CLE→MIA
Cleveland to Miami
- Flights
- 842
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,080 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 842 CLE to MIA flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLE to MIA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.4% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.7%, against 79.5% 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
79.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 829 completed flights
Avg delay
97 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
85.8% on time across 456 flights
These figures cover 842 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% 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
Which airline is most reliable on CLE to MIA
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 456 | 85.8% | 123 min | 1.10% | A |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 266 | 73.2% | 91 min | 1.50% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 111 | 71.6% | 62 min | 1.80% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 44.4% | 65 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Cleveland to Miami
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 → 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 half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am382 flights89.4%
- 8am–11am42 flights78.6%
- 11am–2pm58 flights78.9%
- 2pm–5pm99 flights64.6%
- 5pm–8pm249 flights70.8%
- 8pm–5am12 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.4% of the time, against 64.6% for the afternoon window. That is 25 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 382 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
January is the weak month at 69.5% on time, against 91.1% in September. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 94 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.1%. 17 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 44% of the 16,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 38%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
44% 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 16,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 16,474 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 38%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 6,314 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.31% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.24%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.1% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,080 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.2% on time across 840 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 842 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 MIA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 842 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 79.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 829 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to MIA questions
How often is CLE to MIA 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 20.5% of the 842 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is CLE to MIA compared with the rest of the country?
79.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 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 MIA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 64.6%, 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 January delays on CLE to MIA?
January is the weakest month at 69.5% on time, compared with 91.1% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- MIA to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLE to MIA85.8%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to MIA73.2%
- Envoy Air on CLE to MIA71.6%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.6%
- ATL to MIA, a related route71.0%
- CLE to ATL, a related route85.4%
- American Airlines on-time record85.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record73.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record71.6%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CLE to MIA and MIA 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.