Flight profile · American Airlines
AA2021
Cleveland (CLE) to Charlotte (CLT) · scheduled 8:15 AM – 9:55 AM
How AA2021 performs
651 operations, July 2023 – July 2026.
AA2021 arrived on time 83.8% of the time, against 79.8% for all CLE → CLT flights, so this departure is 4.0 percentage points better than the route as a whole. Against American Airlines’ own flights on this route it is 2.9 points better.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · 651 operations, July 2023 – July 2026 · If AA2021 is cancelled or significantly changed, DOT’s automatic refund rule may entitle you to your money back. The refund checker walks through eligibility.
Where AA2021 is right now
A live reading, only if you ask for it. It is not part of the reliability record above.
Ask for the position of AA2021 right now, if receivers on the ground are hearing it. Nothing is requested until you press the button.
Against the rest of the route
| Flight or route | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe | Flights |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AA2021 | 83.8% | 2.00% | -9 min | 6.9% | 651 |
| American Airlines on CLE → CLT | 80.9% | 1.44% | -7 min | 7.2% | 5,127 |
| All CLE → CLT flights | 79.8% | 1.71% | -7 min | 7.9% | 5,799 |
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
Why AA2021 runs late
Where US DOT attributed the delay minutes on this flight.
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for AA2021 on CLE → CLT. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Does a late aircraft delay this flight?
How often the plane that flies AA2021 comes in late, and what that does to the departure.
AA2021 is usually the aircraft’s first flight of the day: the schedule gives it a median of 9.6 hours on the ground at CLE, so its “inbound” is mostly the aircraft’s arrival the evening before.
When the aircraft came in 15 or more minutes late, AA2021 pushed back an average of 11 minutes late; when it came in on time or early, an average of 8 minutes late.
Each departure is matched to the flight the same aircraft flew into CLE just before it, using the tail number in the DOT file, 526 of 639 departures in all. A departure is left out when that flight is unknown, was cancelled or diverted, or the aircraft had sat for more than 12 hours. A flight the airline cancelled never left and is not in the count, and one flown by a substitute aircraft is matched to the aircraft that flew it, not to the one first planned.
Against the network at the same turn length
| Share of departures | Inbound landed 15+ late | Left 15+ late after a late inbound | Left 15+ late after an on-time inbound |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA2021 | 40% | 21% | 12% |
| Network, same turn | 29% | 12% | 9% |
A night on the ground absorbs most of a late arrival, so a late inbound matters far less on a turn this long than on a same-day one.
The network row is every flight with a scheduled turn of 6 hours or more, usually overnight. How often AA2021’s aircraft landed 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s and, once the aircraft was late, how often AA2021 left 15 or more minutes late is higher than the network’s.
More: Which Flight Numbers Pay for a Late Aircraft lists the flight numbers that pass a late aircraft on.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
From pushback to gate
When it leaves CLE late, does that still matter by the time it reaches CLT?
AA2021 pushes back an average of 14.5 minutes late and reaches the gate at CLT an average of 7.7 minutes late. The 6.8 minutes between those two figures are slack the published schedule already carries, which is why a late pushback on this flight does not reliably become a late arrival. It spends 14.6 minutes on the taxiways at CLE, 1.4 minutes shorter than a typical CLE departure in the same hour.
On arrival at CLT, AA2021 spends 15.1 min taxiing from touchdown to the gate — ground time a connecting passenger sits through before they can even leave the aircraft, on top of however late the flight itself ran. That is 2.2 minutes longer than a typical CLT arrival (12.8 min).
Departure delay is averaged over every pushback and arrival delay over every completed arrival, so the two counts differ by the flights that never reached CLT. Taxi-out is gate to wheels up and sits inside the scheduled block rather than on top of it; the comparison is 8,603 departures from CLE scheduled in the clock hour AA2021 most often leaves in. Taxi-in is landing to gate, compared against every arrival FlyerIntel has on file at CLT (618,237 flights), not just AA2021’s own. More on taxi time.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026
The hour it leaves CLE
Part of any flight’s record belongs to the clock rather than to the flight. AA2021 has one departure time, so this is what that time is worth.
On-time arrival rate. 8,603 departures from CLE are scheduled in the 8 AM–9 AM hour over the period, against 126,883 across the whole day.
AA2021 is scheduled out of CLE at 8:15 AM, in the 8 AM–9 AM bank. Departures from CLE in that hour arrive on time 86.2% of the time against 80.9% across the airport’s whole day — the slot alone is worth 5.3 points better before anything about this particular flight is considered.
The two airport figures cover every departure from CLE to every destination, so they describe the slot rather than this journey — the like-for-like comparison against the route is above. Hours are scheduled local, and a number whose schedule moved between banks inside the period has no single hour and is not described here at all. Why the hour matters.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Hours below 120 departures are not scored.
Other routes AA2021 has flown
A flight number is a slot in a schedule, and carriers reassign it. These are the other city pairs this number served in the analysis period.
| Route | Operated | Flights | On time |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEN→ORD Denver to Chicago | April 7, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 44 | — |
| ORD→DEN Chicago to Denver | April 7, 2026 – May 20, 2026 | 44 | — |
| PHX→LAX Phoenix to Los Angeles | February 12, 2026 | 1 | — |
| CLT→CVG Charlotte to Cincinnati / Covington | November 5, 2023 – October 5, 2025 | 228 | 73.5% |
| PHX→MRY Phoenix to Monterey | May 5, 2025 – June 4, 2025 | 31 | — |
| SAN→CLT San Diego to Charlotte | April 4, 2025 | 1 | — |
| PHX→DFW Phoenix to Dallas–Fort Worth | March 6–29, 2025 | 24 | — |
| CLT→TPA Charlotte to Tampa | February 13, 2025 – March 3, 2025 | 15 | — |
| TPA→CLT Tampa to Charlotte | February 13, 2025 – March 3, 2025 | 15 | — |
| BWI→MIA Baltimore to Miami | January 7, 2025 | 1 | — |
| PHL→MCO Philadelphia to Orlando | December 18, 2024 | 1 | — |
| STL→ORD St. Louis to Chicago | December 5, 2024 | 1 | — |
| LAX→SFO Los Angeles to San Francisco | December 4, 2024 | 1 | — |
| BTV→DCA Burlington to Washington | November 5, 2024 | 1 | — |
| LAX→ELP Los Angeles to El Paso | September 4, 2024 | 1 | — |
| JAX→MIA Jacksonville to Miami | December 19, 2023 | 1 | — |
| MIA→DFW Miami to Dallas–Fort Worth | December 5, 2023 | 1 | — |
Because the same number has served different journeys, the statistics above describe only the route AA2021 currently operates. Blending them would produce an average of two different flights.
When it goes wrong
The average describes a usual day. This is the day that ruins a connection.
38 min late
against a median of 9 min early
Percentiles over 651 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 651 records of AA2021 operating CLE → CLT, published by the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. A flight counts as delayed when it arrives 15 or more minutes after schedule. Cancelled and diverted flights are excluded from the on-time rate and reported separately. Flight numbers are resolved as carrier plus number plus route, because the same number serves different routes over time.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: Most and Least Reliable Flight Numbers · The Delay You Inherit · Making Up Time in the Air
Analysis last recomputed