Route reliability record
TPA→CLE
Tampa to Cleveland
- Flights
- 1,048
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 927 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 1,048 TPA to CLE flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly TPA to CLE: a 11am–2pm departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.9% of the time and Thursday flights 83.2%, against 78.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
78.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,033 completed flights
Avg delay
82 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.24%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Frontier
77.3% on time across 912 flights
These figures cover 1,048 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 TPA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 131 | 84.0% | 80 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 912 | 77.3% | 82 min | 1.43% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 60.0% | 52 min | 0.00% | D+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on TPA 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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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 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am54 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am245 flights84.2%
- 11am–2pm118 flights88.9%
- 2pm–5pm201 flights78.5%
- 5pm–8pm190 flights72.2%
- 8pm–5am240 flights68.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 88.9% on time, ahead of 8pm–5am at 68.6%. 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 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 245 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter TPA 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 TPA to CLE, the best departure window is 11am–2pm at 88.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 68.6%, a wide gap of 20.3 points. All US flights leaving 11am–2pm ran 78.3%.
- 5–8am86.8%
- 8–11am84.2%
- 11am–2pm88.9%
- 2–5pm78.5%
- 5–8pm72.2%
- 8pm–5am68.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 31 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.
July is the worst month at 64.4% on time, 31 points below September, the best at 95.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 139 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 68% of the 19,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 68%Late-arriving aircraft
- 18%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
68% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 19,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 25 to one. The split is drawn from 18,567 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.24% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
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.
The 927 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.
The return leg runs 79.9% on time across 1,046 flights, within 2 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. 1,048 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. 1,048 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 78.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,033 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
TPA to CLE questions
How often is TPA to CLE delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.0% of the 1,048 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is TPA to CLE compared with the rest of the country?
78.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on TPA to CLE?
The 11am–2pm departure window is the strongest at 88.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.6%, 20 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 July delays on TPA to CLE?
July is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 95.0% in September. Across the year that is 31 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 TPA — the return legseparate record
- Tampa International (TPA) delay statistics
- Cleveland Hopkins International (CLE) delay statistics
- United Airlines on TPA to CLE84.0%
- Frontier Airlines on TPA to CLE77.3%
- TPA to ATL, a related route79.6%
- ORD to CLE, a related route70.8%
- TPA to ORD, a related route72.9%
- United Airlines on-time record84.0%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record77.3%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record60.0%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. TPA to CLE and CLE to TPA 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.