Carrier route record
UAIAD→CLE
United Airlines · Washington to Cleveland
- Flights
- 796
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 74%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on IAD to CLE earns an A+. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 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 796 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, United's IAD to CLE record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 79 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 791 completed flights
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
84.1%
Every carrier on IAD to CLE, 1,076 flights
These figures cover 796 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
United against every carrier on IAD to CLE
United flew 796 of the 1,076 flights on IAD to CLE, most of the route. Its 85.2% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 84.1%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from United at 85.2% to Republic at 80.8%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 796 | 85.2% | 80 min | 0.38% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 280 | 80.8% | 73 min | 3.21% | B− |
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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–8am—
- 8am–11am203 flights92.1%
- 11am–2pm193 flights88.6%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm187 flights76.6%
- 8pm–5am213 flights83.0%
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 76.6% 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 213 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on IAD to CLE through the year
October is the best month on the calendar at 93.0% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. August was the busiest month here, with 106 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 91.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.3%, a spread of 14 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on IAD to CLE runs when it is late
United on IAD to CLE often beats the schedule: 215 of 791 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 117 late arrivals split 32 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 43 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early215 flights27.2%
- Within 15 min459 flights58.0%
- 15–29 min late32 flights4.0%
- 30–59 min late42 flights5.3%
- 1–2 hours late22 flights2.8%
- 2+ hours late21 flights2.7%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 791 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
13 of 101 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 13% of them. 29 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for United on IAD to CLE
The latest arrival of the period was on 9 July 2026, 12 hours 40 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as extreme weather. The five worst days are spread across July, September, May, March and June, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 9 July 2026 | 12 hours 40 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 11 September 2025 | 6 hours 2 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 5 May 2026 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 March 2026 | 5 hours 15 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 21 June 2026 | 5 hours 11 minutes | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
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 9,366 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Carrier
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 9,366 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 3,490 of the 9,366 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.38%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
5.4% 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 runs 87.6% on time across 796 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 796 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 United on IAD to CLE
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 796 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 85.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 791 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- IAD to CLE, every carrier
- United on CLE to IAD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on IAD to CLE80.8%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.