Carrier route record
AACLE→ORD
American Airlines · Cleveland to Chicago
- Flights
- 395
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 8%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLE to ORD sits in the middle of the pack with a B−. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 395 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 587 at 76.9% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.9% on time across 587 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 380 completed flights
Avg delay
109 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.54%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
74.5%
Every carrier on CLE to ORD, 4,895 flights
These figures cover 395 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLE to ORD
American flew 395 of the 4,895 flights on CLE to ORD, about 8% of it. Its 75.0% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 74.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.9% to SkyWest at 69.2%.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.9% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 69.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 854 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 587 | 76.9% | 75 min | 6.64% | B− |
| United Airlines | 2,181 | 75.6% | 79 min | 1.47% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 395 | 75.0% | 109 min | 3.54% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 878 | 74.9% | 78 min | 4.33% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 854 | 69.2% | 97 min | 4.22% | C− |
Republic Airways cancels 6.6% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 points, against 8 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am136 flights89.1%
- 8am–11am85 flights81.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm44 flights71.4%
- 5pm–8pm130 flights57.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.3% on time, against 89.1% 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 136 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLE to ORD through the year
- Jul–Sep 202545 flights73.3%
- Oct–Dec 202559 flights86.2%
- Jan–Mar 202658 flights58.2%
- Apr–Jun 2026197 flights74.1%
- Jul–Sep 202636 flights90.9%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 75.0% on time across 395 flights.
American on CLE to ORD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2026 at 90.9% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 58.2%, a swing of 33 points on roughly 79 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 67.3%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CLE to ORD runs when it is late
American on CLE to ORD often beats the schedule: 126 of 380 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 95 late arrivals split 31 under half an hour, 27 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 37 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early126 flights33.2%
- Within 15 min159 flights41.8%
- 15–29 min late31 flights8.2%
- 30–59 min late27 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late16 flights4.2%
- 2+ hours late21 flights5.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 380 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
12 of 76 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. In the other direction, 31 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at ORD.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CLE to ORD
The latest arrival of the period was on 16 September 2025, 28 hours 24 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in September 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 16 September 2025 | 28 hours 24 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 September 2025 | 18 hours 56 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 July 2026 | 6 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 September 2025 | 6 hours 10 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 May 2026 | 5 hours 45 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 10,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 4,114 of the 10,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,322 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 89.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.54%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 316 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 59.2% on time across 396 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 395 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.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLE to ORD
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.54% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you close to two hours; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 380 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to ORD, every carrier
- American on ORD to CLE, the return leg
- Republic Airways on CLE to ORD76.9%
- United Airlines on CLE to ORD75.6%
- Envoy Air on CLE to ORD74.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on CLE to ORD69.2%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.