Route reliability record
CLE→PHX
Cleveland to Phoenix
- Flights
- 1,011
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,737 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,011 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 89.1% of the time and Wednesday flights 84.4%, against 76.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 996 completed flights
Avg delay
60 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.79%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
69.7% on time across 366 flights
These figures cover 1,011 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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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 | 318 | 82.5% | 60 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 327 | 77.5% | 88 min | 2.14% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 366 | 69.7% | 43 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on CLE to PHX
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am381 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am65 flights89.1%
- 11am–2pm165 flights79.3%
- 2pm–5pm193 flights58.9%
- 5pm–8pm28 flights—
- 8pm–5am179 flights74.7%
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.1% of the time, against 58.9% for the afternoon window. That is 30 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 381 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLE to PHX 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 PHX, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 89.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 58.9%, a wide gap of 30.2 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am84.0%
- 8–11am89.1%
- 11am–2pm79.3%
- 2–5pm58.9%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am74.7%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 85.9% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 70.7%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
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 14,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%Carrier
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 19%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 16 to one. The split is drawn from 14,279 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 41%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,844 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.79%, below the national 1.89% 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
6.6% 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 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 runs 73.3% on time across 1,012 flights, within 3 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. 1,011 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. 1,011 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 76.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 996 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLE to PHX questions
How often is CLE to PHX delayed?
About 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 23.8% of the 1,011 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLE to PHX compared with the rest of the country?
76.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of about 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 PHX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.9%, 30 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 85.9% in May. Across the year that is 26 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 PHX82.5%
- Frontier Airlines on CLE to PHX77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on CLE to PHX69.7%
- CLE to ORD, a related route74.5%
- DEN to PHX, a related route75.6%
- CLE to ATL, a related route84.6%
- American Airlines on-time record82.5%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record69.7%
- 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 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.