Carrier route record
UAORD→CLE
United Airlines · Chicago to Cleveland
- Flights
- 2,182
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 45%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.
United on ORD 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, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,182 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 583 at 76.2% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 76.2% on time across 583 flights.
Key figures
On time
71.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,154 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.28%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.8%
Every carrier on ORD to CLE, 4,893 flights
These figures cover 2,182 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
United against every carrier on ORD to CLE
United flew 2,182 of the 4,893 flights on ORD to CLE, about 45% of it. Its 71.8% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 70.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 76.2% to American at 59.2%.
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 (this page) | 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
United flight numbers on ORD to CLE
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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 32 points, against 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am321 flights89.6%
- 8am–11am239 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm265 flights77.6%
- 2pm–5pm430 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm544 flights57.1%
- 8pm–5am383 flights64.2%
Scale runs 50% to 95%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 57.1% on time, against 89.6% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 544 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
United on ORD to CLE through the year
August is the worst month at 61.8% on time, 18 points below October, the best at 80.2%. 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. September was the busiest month here, with 230 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 66.5%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late United on ORD to CLE runs when it is late
The 607 late arrivals split 199 under half an hour, 154 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 254 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early445 flights20.7%
- Within 15 min1,102 flights51.2%
- 15–29 min late199 flights9.2%
- 30–59 min late154 flights7.1%
- 1–2 hours late130 flights6.0%
- 2+ hours late124 flights5.8%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 2,154 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
76 of 540 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 14% of them. In the other direction, 143 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at CLE.
The worst days
Worst days for United on ORD to CLE
The latest arrival of the period was on 8 June 2026, 10 hours 17 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 8 June 2026 | 10 hours 17 minutes | Carrier |
| 27 July 2026 | 8 hours 33 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 13 August 2026 | 8 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 July 2026 | 7 hours 58 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 August 2026 | 6 hours 53 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why United runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 47,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 15%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 47,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 47,130 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 89.6% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.28% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.8% 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 75.6% on time across 2,181 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 2,182 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.
What to do with this
Booking United on ORD to CLE
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 80.2% on time and August 61.8%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 2,154 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- ORD to CLE, every carrier
- United on CLE to ORD, the return leg
- Republic Airways on ORD to CLE76.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to CLE73.1%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CLE67.3%
- American Airlines on ORD to CLE59.2%
- United Airlines network-wide record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
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.