Route reliability record
CLE→PHL
Cleveland to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,060
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 363 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,060 CLE to PHL flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLE to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.8% of the time and Saturday flights 85.5%, against 76.9% 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
76.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 998 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.75%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
PSA
77.8% on time across 590 flights
These figures cover 1,060 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 PHL
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 41 | 85.4% | 39 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 590 | 77.8% | 121 min | 7.63% | B− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 272 | 77.0% | 93 min | 4.04% | B− |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 157 | 71.1% | 68 min | 3.18% | C− |
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 34 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–8am311 flights90.8%
- 8am–11am99 flights84.5%
- 11am–2pm214 flights87.2%
- 2pm–5pm239 flights56.6%
- 5pm–8pm197 flights63.3%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.8% of the time, against 56.6% for the afternoon window. That is 34 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 311 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 58.8% on time, against 88.4% in May. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 118 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 70.5%. 15 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 48% of the 23,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 23,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 35 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 23,421 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, 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 8,186 of the 23,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations run at 5.75%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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 actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.0% 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 363 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 runs 74.6% on time across 1,057 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,060 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.75% 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. 998 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to PHL questions
How often is CLE to PHL delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 23.1% of the 1,060 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is CLE to PHL compared with the rest of the country?
76.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point against it. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLE to PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.8% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.6%, 34 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 PHL?
December is the weakest month at 58.8% on time, compared with 88.4% in May. Across the year that is 30 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
- PHL to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- PSA Airlines on CLE to PHL77.8%
- American Airlines on CLE to PHL77.0%
- Republic Airways on CLE to PHL71.1%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.6%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- CLE to ATL, a related route85.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record85.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.8%
- American Airlines on-time record77.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CLE to PHL and PHL 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.