Carrier route record
UAEWR→CLE
United Airlines · Newark to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,445
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 67%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on EWR to CLE 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,445 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,401 completed flights
Avg delay
90 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.04%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.1%
Every carrier on EWR to CLE, 2,163 flights
These figures cover 1,445 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on EWR to CLE
United flew 1,445 of the 2,163 flights on EWR to CLE, most of the route. Its 76.4% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.7% to United at 76.4%.
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 | 718 | 87.7% | 55 min | 5.15% | A− |
| United Airlines (this page) | 1,445 | 76.4% | 90 min | 3.04% | B− |
Flight by flight
United flight numbers on EWR to CLE
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 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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am113 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am260 flights85.8%
- 11am–2pm74 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm272 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm432 flights71.7%
- 8pm–5am294 flights72.4%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.2% of the time, against 71.7% for the evening window. That is 16 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 432 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on EWR to CLE through the year
July is the worst month at 67.9% on time, 21 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on EWR to CLE runs when it is late
United on EWR to CLE often beats the schedule: 469 of 1,401 completed flights, 33%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 330 late arrivals split 91 under half an hour, 81 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 158 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early469 flights33.5%
- Within 15 min602 flights43.0%
- 15–29 min late91 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late81 flights5.8%
- 1–2 hours late86 flights6.1%
- 2+ hours late72 flights5.1%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,401 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
58 of 310 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 19% of them. In the other direction, 78 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at CLE.
The worst days
Worst days for United on EWR to CLE
The latest arrival of the period was on 3 July 2026, 10 hours 41 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 July 2026 | 10 hours 41 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 9 July 2026 | 9 hours | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 11 June 2026 | 8 hours 18 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 October 2025 | 8 hours 14 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 7 August 2026 | 7 hours 36 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 26%Carrier
- 19%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 29,672 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 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.04%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.3% 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 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 1,444 flights, 3 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 3 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,445 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.04% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,401 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 CLE87.7%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Newark Liberty International (EWR) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
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.