Route reliability record
CLE→PHX
Cleveland to Phoenix
- Flights
- 956
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,737 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.6%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 956 CLE to PHX flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLE to PHX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.6%, against 77.9% 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
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 944 completed flights
Avg delay
58 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.1% on time across 371 flights
These figures cover 956 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 PHX
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 Airlinesthin sample | 267 | 81.8% | 63 min | 0.37% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 318 | 79.0% | 72 min | 2.20% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 371 | 74.1% | 46 min | 0.00% | 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 23 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–8am338 flights83.7%
- 8am–11am57 flights89.3%
- 11am–2pm185 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm204 flights67.5%
- 5pm–8pm44 flights65.9%
- 8pm–5am128 flights74.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.3% of the time, against 65.9% for the evening window. That is 23 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 338 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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 59.5% on time, against 88.5% in July. 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 101 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.6% on time and Thursday the weakest at 73.3%. 11 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. Carrier accounts for 46% of the 12,000 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.
- 46%Carrier
- 29%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, 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 5,565 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 12,122 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.5% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,737 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 72.7% on time across 957 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 956 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 PHX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 956 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 77.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 944 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to PHX questions
How often is CLE to PHX delayed?
Roughly 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 22.1% of the 956 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLE to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
77.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point 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 PHX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.9%, 23 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 PHX?
December is the weakest month at 59.5% on time, compared with 88.5% in July. Across the year that is 29 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
- PHX to CLE — the return legseparate record
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CLE to PHX81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to PHX79.0%
- Southwest Airlines on CLE to PHX74.1%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.6%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.7%
- CLE to ATL, a related route85.4%
- American Airlines on-time record81.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record79.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. CLE to PHX and PHX 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.