Route reliability record
ORD→CLE
Chicago to Cleveland
- Flights
- 4,893
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 316 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route 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 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,893 ORD to CLE flights, of which Republic Airways flew 583 at 76.2% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to CLE: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.3%, against 70.8% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the five carriers covered here at 76.2% on time across 583 flights.
Key figures
On time
70.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,749 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.82%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.2% on time across 583 flights
These figures cover 4,893 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CLE
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.2% of the time; American Airlines manages 59.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 396 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 583 | 76.2% | 69 min | 5.32% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 879 | 73.1% | 62 min | 4.10% | C− |
| United Airlines | 2,182 | 71.8% | 78 min | 1.28% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 853 | 67.3% | 87 min | 3.40% | C− |
| American Airlines | 396 | 59.2% | 98 min | 3.54% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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.
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 Chicago 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 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Southwest Airlines | 78.5% | 79.6% | 1.35% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Republic Airways | 72.1% | 76.2% | 5.32% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 3. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | United Airlines | 70.9% | 71.8% | 1.28% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 2389 10:29 |
| 4. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | Envoy Air | 70.1% | 73.1% | 4.10% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. ORD → CLEChicago to Cleveland | SkyWest Airlines | 65.0% | 67.3% | 3.40% | 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 27 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am611 flights84.0%
- 8am–11am606 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm855 flights74.9%
- 2pm–5pm1,037 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm983 flights57.4%
- 8pm–5am801 flights63.1%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.4% on time, against 84.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 1,037 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to CLE, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 57.4%, a wide gap of 26.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.0%
- 8–11am82.5%
- 11am–2pm74.9%
- 2–5pm70.9%
- 5–8pm57.4%
- 8pm–5am63.1%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 59.0% on time, against 77.1% in May. 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. April was the busiest month here, with 478 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 65.7%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 109,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 10%Extreme weather
44% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 109,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one. The split is drawn from 108,740 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 84.0% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.82%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
12.6% 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 316 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.5% on time across 4,895 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,893 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 2.82% 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. 4,749 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to CLE questions
How often is ORD to CLE delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.2% of the 4,893 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CLE?
Republic Airways leads at 76.2% on time across 583 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 59.2%, a gap of 17 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 ORD to CLE?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 57.4%, 27 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 ORD to CLE?
December is the weakest month at 59.0% on time, compared with 77.1% in May. Across the year that is 18 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to CLE76.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to CLE73.1%
- United Airlines on ORD to CLE71.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CLE67.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to CLE59.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to CLE, a related route79.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record73.1%
- United Airlines on-time record71.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to CLE and CLE to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed ORD to CLE’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.