Route reliability record
IAD→CLE
Washington to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,076
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 287 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs a little over an hour. That rests on 1,076 IAD to CLE flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly IAD to CLE: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Friday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.1% of the time and Friday flights 90.4%, against 84.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,062 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.12%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
United
85.2% on time across 796 flights
These figures cover 1,076 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 8 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on IAD to CLE
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 796 | 85.2% | 80 min | 0.38% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 280 | 80.8% | 73 min | 3.21% | B− |
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington 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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → CLEWashington to Cleveland | United Airlines | 84.9% | 85.2% | 0.38% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
| 2. BWI → CLEBaltimore to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 74.2% | 75.9% | 2.27% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. DCA → CLEWashington to Cleveland | PSA Airlines | 56.4% | 61.9% | 8.84% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am203 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm262 flights88.1%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm331 flights76.4%
- 8pm–5am280 flights83.4%
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.1% of the time, against 76.4% 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 331 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter IAD to CLE by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On IAD to CLE, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 92.1% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 76.4%, a wide gap of 15.7 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am92.1%
- 11am–2pm88.1%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm76.4%
- 8pm–5am83.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 15 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.
July is the worst month at 75.9% on time, 15 points below October, the best at 91.1%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 120 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 90.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.2%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 13,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 20%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 11% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 13,151 reported delay minutes.
37% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 13,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 to one.
Cancellations sit at 1.12% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 287 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 87.1% on time across 1,072 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,076 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,076 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 84.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,062 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
IAD to CLE questions
How often is IAD to CLE delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.9% of the 1,076 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is IAD to CLE compared with the rest of the country?
84.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on IAD to CLE?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 76.4%, 16 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 July delays on IAD to CLE?
July is the weakest month at 75.9% on time, compared with 91.1% in October. Across the year that is 15 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 IAD — the return legseparate record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- United Airlines on IAD to CLE85.2%
- Republic Airways on IAD to CLE80.8%
- IAD to ATL, a related route78.0%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- IAD to DEN, a related route83.1%
- United Airlines on-time record85.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.8%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. IAD to CLE and CLE to IAD 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.