Route reliability record
LGA→CLE
New York to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,769
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 419 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 6.0% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,769 LGA to CLE flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly LGA to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.3% of the time and Saturday flights 78.1%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 4 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 42 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,661 completed flights
Avg delay
71 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
6.05%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
73.8% on time across 1,667 flights
These figures cover 1,769 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,667 | 73.8% | 69 min | 6.12% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 102 | 60.8% | 97 min | 4.90% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on LGA to CLE
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York 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. EWR → CLENewark to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 83.2% | 87.7% | 5.15% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. EWR → CLENewark to Cleveland | United Airlines | 74.1% | 76.4% | 3.04% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1611 18:35 |
| 3. LGA → CLENew York to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 69.3% | 73.8% | 6.12% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 4722 20:58 |
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 31 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am92 flights91.3%
- 8am–11am387 flights82.6%
- 11am–2pm382 flights79.9%
- 2pm–5pm327 flights67.4%
- 5pm–8pm83 flights60.5%
- 8pm–5am498 flights62.3%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 60.5% on time, against 91.3% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 498 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA 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 LGA to CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 91.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 60.5%, a wide gap of 30.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am91.3%
- 8–11am82.6%
- 11am–2pm79.9%
- 2–5pm67.4%
- 5–8pm60.5%
- 8pm–5am62.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
December is the weak month at 59.9% on time, against 82.7% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 212 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 78.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.7%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%National Airspace System
- 17%Carrier
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. The split is drawn from 31,807 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 91.3% on time here.
Cancellations run at 6.05%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in fifteen 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 actually costs
11.1% 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 419 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 runs 76.0% on time across 1,772 flights, within 3 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 1,769 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 delay figures matter less here than the 6.05% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,661 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to CLE questions
How often is LGA to CLE delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 26.9% of the 1,769 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is LGA to CLE compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 4 points against it. That is worth a C− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 60.5%, 31 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 December delays on LGA to CLE?
December is the weakest month at 59.9% on time, compared with 82.7% in September. Across the year that is 23 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 LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on LGA to CLE73.8%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to CLE60.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record73.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record60.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to CLE and CLE to LGA 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.