Carrier route record
AAMIA→CLE
American Airlines · Miami to Cleveland
- Flights
- 456
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 54%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on MIA to CLE sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 456 flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on MIA to CLE runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 71 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 448 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.10%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
72.2%
Every carrier on MIA to CLE, 840 flights
These figures cover 456 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.2% 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
American against every carrier on MIA to CLE
American flew 456 of the 840 flights on MIA to CLE, most of the route. Its 70.5% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 72.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 77.8% to Republic at 55.6%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 111 | 77.8% | 43 min | 1.80% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 264 | 73.5% | 83 min | 1.14% | C |
| American Airlines (this page) | 456 | 70.5% | 65 min | 1.10% | C |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 9 | 55.6% | 95 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm91 flights76.1%
- 5pm–8pm33 flights90.6%
- 8pm–5am332 flights67.1%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The full set of windows spans 24 points.
Across the year
American on MIA to CLE through the year
Delays peak in April, when the on-time rate falls to 55.6%. December is the strongest month at 83.3%. Moving a flexible trip across that boundary buys 28 points. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 60.9%. 21 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 8,540 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.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 43%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
45% 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 8,540 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 29 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 8,540 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 3,694 of the 8,540 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.66%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 1,080 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.8% on time across 456 flights, 15 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 15 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 456 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 American on MIA to CLE
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 456 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 70.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 448 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MIA to CLE, every carrier
- American on CLE to MIA, the return leg
- Envoy Air on MIA to CLE77.8%
- Frontier Airlines on MIA to CLE73.5%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Miami International (MIA) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.