Route reliability record
FLL→CLE
Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,164
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,062 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, about a point better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,164 FLL to CLE flights, of which United Airlines flew 506 at 91.4% on time.
Best time to fly FLL to CLE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 93.7%, against 78.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,139 completed flights
Avg delay
86 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
91.4% on time across 506 flights
These figures cover 1,164 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.3% 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
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 91.4% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 70.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 425 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 506 | 91.4% | 99 min | 0.99% | A+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 425 | 70.2% | 95 min | 2.12% | C |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 233 | 67.0% | 64 min | 3.86% | C− |
The spread between United and Frontier is 21 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 21 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. FLL → CLEFort Lauderdale to Cleveland | United Airlines | 90.5% | 91.4% | 0.99% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. MIA → CLEMiami to Cleveland | American Airlines | 69.7% | 70.5% | 1.10% | 5pm–8pm, Tue | — |
| 3. FLL → CLEFort Lauderdale to Cleveland | Frontier Airlines | 68.7% | 70.2% | 2.12% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am28 flights—
- 8am–11am266 flights89.7%
- 11am–2pm249 flights86.1%
- 2pm–5pm348 flights72.4%
- 5pm–8pm86 flights66.3%
- 8pm–5am187 flights72.8%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 89.7% of the time, against 66.3% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 348 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
Delays peak in March, when the on-time rate falls to 64.7%. July is the strongest month at 89.8%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 25 points. March was the busiest month here, with 160 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 68.3%. 25 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 21,000 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.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
52% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 22 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 20,689 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 89.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.17%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,062 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg runs 80.6% on time across 1,164 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,164 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. July runs 89.8% on time and March 64.7%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of March before you think about anything else. 1,139 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
FLL to CLE questions
How often is FLL to CLE delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.2% of the 1,164 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on FLL to CLE?
United Airlines leads at 91.4% on time across 506 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 70.2%, a gap of 21 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on FLL to CLE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 89.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.3%, 23 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are March delays on FLL to CLE?
March is the weakest month at 64.7% on time, compared with 89.8% in July. Across the year that is 25 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CLE to FLL — the return legseparate record
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- United Airlines on FLL to CLE91.4%
- Frontier Airlines on FLL to CLE70.2%
- Spirit Airlines on FLL to CLE67.0%
- FLL to ATL, a related route71.8%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.1%
- FLL to EWR, a related route70.4%
- United Airlines on-time record91.4%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record70.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record67.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. FLL to CLE and CLE to FLL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.