Carrier route record
UAEWR→CLE
United Airlines · Newark to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,428
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR 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, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,428 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on EWR 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
74.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,398 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.3%
Every carrier on EWR to CLE, 2,165 flights
These figures cover 1,428 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.0% 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
United against every carrier on EWR to CLE
United flew 1,428 of the 2,165 flights on EWR to CLE, most of the route. Its 74.5% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 88.8% to United at 74.5%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 737 | 88.8% | 54 min | 3.93% | A− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,428 | 74.5% | 88 min | 2.10% | C |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to CLE
Departure window
When United runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 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–8am109 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am204 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm132 flights78.3%
- 2pm–5pm254 flights72.1%
- 5pm–8pm425 flights70.3%
- 8pm–5am304 flights68.0%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.6% of the time, against 68.0% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 425 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to CLE through the year
July is the worst month at 45.6% on time, 43 points below April, the best at 88.9%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 165 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 78.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.0%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 31,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 6%Extreme weather
53% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 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 31,443 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 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.0% 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 404 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 79.8% on time across 1,426 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,428 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 United on EWR to CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 88.9% on time and July 45.6%, a swing of 43 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,398 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to CLE, every carrier
- United on CLE to EWR, the return leg
- Republic Airways on EWR to CLE88.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.