Carrier route record
AADFW→CLE
American Airlines · Dallas-Fort Worth to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,420
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 88%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on DFW to CLE draws a D. Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, and the typical late arrival is about an hour behind schedule. Build slack into anything you connect to. That rests on 1,420 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes late.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so American on DFW to CLE runs 14 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 136 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
63.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,387 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.25%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
65.8%
Every carrier on DFW to CLE, 1,612 flights
These figures cover 1,420 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on DFW to CLE
American flew 1,420 of the 1,612 flights on DFW to CLE, most of the route. Its 63.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 65.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to American at 63.7%. Two 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 24 | 100.0% | — | 8.33% | A− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 168 | 78.3% | 96 min | 1.19% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,420 | 63.7% | 63 min | 2.25% | D |
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 32 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am150 flights84.7%
- 8am–11am326 flights72.1%
- 11am–2pm243 flights60.8%
- 2pm–5pm188 flights58.7%
- 5pm–8pm350 flights56.6%
- 8pm–5am163 flights52.6%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 52.6% on time, against 84.7% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 350 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on DFW to CLE through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 73.6% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. December was the busiest month here, with 131 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 74.5% on time and Sunday the weakest at 53.3%, a spread of 21 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on DFW to CLE runs when it is late
The 503 late arrivals split 162 under half an hour, 178 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 163 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early223 flights16.1%
- Within 15 min661 flights47.7%
- 15–29 min late162 flights11.7%
- 30–59 min late178 flights12.8%
- 1–2 hours late100 flights7.2%
- 2+ hours late63 flights4.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,387 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
87 of 528 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 62 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on DFW to CLE
The latest arrival of the period was on 12 June 2026, 8 hours 48 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as national airspace system delay. The five worst days are spread across June, January, October and March, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 12 June 2026 | 8 hours 48 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 22 June 2026 | 7 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 January 2026 | 6 hours 15 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 16 October 2025 | 5 hours 19 minutes | Carrier |
| 4 March 2026 | 5 hours 14 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 31,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 10 to one. The split is drawn from 31,450 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 84.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.25% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.07%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.8% 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.
The 1,021 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.2% on time across 1,422 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,420 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 DFW to CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 73.6% on time and March 51.6%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,387 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DFW to CLE, every carrier
- American on CLE to DFW, the return leg
- Frontier Airlines on DFW to CLE78.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) 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.