Route reliability record
PHX→CLE
Phoenix to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,012
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,737 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,012 PHX to CLE flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly PHX to CLE: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 74.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.9%, against 73.3% 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 40 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,002 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.69%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
67.1% on time across 366 flights
These figures cover 1,012 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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 PHX 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 318 | 77.3% | 86 min | 0.31% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 328 | 76.2% | 81 min | 1.83% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 366 | 67.1% | 44 min | 0.00% | C+ |
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.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,012 flights.
- 5am–8am28 flights—
- 8am–11am165 flights70.0%
- 11am–2pm287 flights73.8%
- 2pm–5pm399 flights74.6%
- 5pm–8pm117 flights67.2%
- 8pm–5am16 flights—
Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 74.6% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 67.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 399 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to CLE, the best departure window is 2pm–5pm at 74.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.2%, a real gap of 7.4 points. All US flights leaving 2pm–5pm ran 71.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am70.0%
- 11am–2pm73.8%
- 2–5pm74.6%
- 5–8pm67.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 83.1% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 101 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 62.7%, a spread of 19 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 44%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 17,593 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 44%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 7,678 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.69%, 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 actually costs
8.4% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,737 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg runs 76.2% on time across 1,011 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,012 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLE after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,012 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 73.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,002 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to CLE questions
How often is PHX 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 26.7% of the 1,012 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is PHX to CLE compared with the rest of the country?
73.3% 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 PHX to CLE?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 74.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.2%, 7 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 March delays on PHX to CLE?
March is the weakest month at 63.6% on time, compared with 83.1% in October. Across the year that is 19 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to CLE77.3%
- Frontier Airlines on PHX to CLE76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to CLE67.1%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- American Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record76.2%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record67.1%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. PHX to CLE and CLE to PHX 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.