Carrier route record
YXEWR→CLE
Republic Airways · Newark to Cleveland
- Flights
- 737
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 34%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Republic Airways.
Republic on EWR to CLE carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.9% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to nine flights in ten arrive on time, worth an A− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 737 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, Republic's EWR to CLE record is 11 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 112 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
88.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 708 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.93%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
79.3%
Every carrier on EWR to CLE, 2,165 flights
These figures cover 737 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
Carrier by carrier
Republic against every carrier on EWR to CLE
Republic flew 737 of the 2,165 flights on EWR to CLE, about 34% of it. Its 88.8% on time is 10 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 79.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first 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 (this page) | 737 | 88.8% | 54 min | 3.93% | A− |
| United Airlines | 1,428 | 74.5% | 88 min | 2.10% | C |
Departure window
When Republic runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 737 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am119 flights91.3%
- 11am–2pm288 flights90.0%
- 2pm–5pm326 flights87.1%
- 5pm–8pm4 flights—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 80% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 91.3% on time for the 8am–11am window against 87.1% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 326 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Republic on EWR to CLE through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 97.4% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. January was the busiest month here, with 98 flights.
Across the week, Monday is the strongest day at 91.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 86.1%. 5 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Republic runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 4,275 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.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 21%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
50% 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 4,275 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 4,275 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.93%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 3.2% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.3% on time across 737 flights, 8 points below 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 737 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.
What to do with this
Booking Republic on EWR to CLE
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.93% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you about 55 minutes; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 708 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- EWR to CLE, every carrier
- Republic on CLE to EWR, the return leg
- United Airlines on EWR to CLE74.5%
- Republic Airways 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.