Carrier route record
AACLT→CLE
American Airlines · Charlotte to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,406
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 79%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to CLE sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,406 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to CLE from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
73.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,387 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
73.7%
Every carrier on CLT to CLE, 1,780 flights
These figures cover 1,406 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.4% 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 CLT to CLE
American flew 1,406 of the 1,780 flights on CLT to CLE, most of the route. Its 73.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 73.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Frontier at 75.9% to Envoy at 30.0%. Three of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 60 | 75.9% | 87 min | 3.33% | B− |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 304 | 74.0% | 66 min | 5.92% | C− |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,406 | 73.8% | 66 min | 1.14% | C |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 10 | 30.0% | 63 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 26 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am81 flights92.6%
- 8am–11am213 flights81.5%
- 11am–2pm262 flights79.2%
- 2pm–5pm86 flights79.1%
- 5pm–8pm167 flights70.9%
- 8pm–5am597 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.6% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 26 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 597 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to CLE through the year
August is the worst month at 61.8% on time, 24 points below September, the best at 86.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 152 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 85.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.2%, a spread of 24 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CLT to CLE runs when it is late
The 363 late arrivals split 107 under half an hour, 125 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 131 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early283 flights20.4%
- Within 15 min741 flights53.4%
- 15–29 min late107 flights7.7%
- 30–59 min late125 flights9.0%
- 1–2 hours late91 flights6.6%
- 2+ hours late40 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,387 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
51 of 358 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. 56 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CLT to CLE
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 April 2026, 11 hours 27 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 3 April 2026 | 11 hours 27 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 22 June 2026 | 9 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 24 January 2026 | 8 hours 30 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 November 2025 | 7 hours 37 minutes | Carrier |
| 22 May 2026 | 7 hours 20 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 24,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 24,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 23,869 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 92.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
9.4% 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 430 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 82.2% on time across 1,407 flights, 8 points above 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,406 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
What to do with this
Booking American on CLT to CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 86.0% on time and August 61.8%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,387 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to CLE, every carrier
- American on CLE to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to CLE74.0%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.