Route profile
ATL→CLE
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Atlanta to Cleveland, 554 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 53% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,100 flights. How this is calculated
ATL → CLE arrives on time 78.6% of the time; the return trip, CLE → ATL, arrives on time 83.8% of the time, a 5.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
ATL → CLE spends 24.9 minutes on the ground on a 554-mile trip: 16.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at ATL and 8.7 minutes from touchdown to gate at CLE.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
Why ATL → CLE flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
ATL → CLE cancelled 132 of 10,100 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 77. The reason filed most often was the airline, 75.0% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 102 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 132 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
99 cancellations, 75.0% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
33 cancellations, 25.0% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
132 coded cancellations were recorded on ATL → CLE; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
41 min late
against a median of 4 min early
Percentiles over 10,100 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at CLE after arriving from ATL.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 38% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 21% | High risk |
| 60 min | 13% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 6.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.5% | Low risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.31% of the time and diverts 0.11% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,957 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 41 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,100 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
ATL → CLE flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 86.7% of the time, against 69.7% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 17.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 5 AM: too few flights to score
- 6 AM: 78.2% on time from 126 flights
- 7 AM: 89.9% on time from 645 flights
- 8 AM: 85.8% on time from 790 flights
- 9 AM: 82.9% on time from 851 flights
- 10 AM: 83.9% on time from 257 flights
- 11 AM: 85.3% on time from 849 flights
- 12 PM: 83.2% on time from 244 flights
- 1 PM: 84.5% on time from 486 flights
- 2 PM: 82.9% on time from 784 flights
- 3 PM: 79.5% on time from 521 flights
- 4 PM: 73.5% on time from 689 flights
- 5 PM: 72.0% on time from 638 flights
- 6 PM: 67.5% on time from 429 flights
- 7 PM: 69.5% on time from 499 flights
- 8 PM: 71.8% on time from 463 flights
- 9 PM: 63.3% on time from 441 flights
- 10 PM: 76.0% on time from 972 flights
- 11 PM: 70.6% on time from 318 flights
Why ATL → CLE runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
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 ATL → CLE. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of ATL to CLE: 3.3 times the normal rate at ATL and 2.3 times at CLE. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: ATL 3.4% against 1.0%, CLE 3.8% against 1.6%. Flights that did leave ATL in bad weather arrived on time 66.5% of the time, against 80.2% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | ATL | CLE |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.4% | 3.8% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.0% | 1.6% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 66.5% | 69.9% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 80.2% | 82.6% |
| Departures in bad weather | 105,854 | 17,314 |
Of the carriers on this route, Southwest Airlines (2.1% cancelled against 3.1% for the other carriers at ATL) cancelled the fewest departures from ATL in bad weather and Frontier Airlines (5.0% cancelled against 3.8% for the other carriers at ATL) the most.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at ATL
All departures from ATL| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 8,953 | 2.1%below the others | 3.1% |
| Delta Air Lines | 73,919 | 3.5%about level | 3.6% |
| Spirit Airlines | 2,965 | 3.9%above the others | 3.2% |
| Frontier Airlines | 4,928 | 5.0%above the others | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from ATL and CLE, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from ATL on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: ATL (airlines), CLE, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 7,787 | 81.2% | 1.22% | -5 min | 5.5% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,520 | 64.9% | 2.37% | 2 min | 13.6% |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 82.3% | 0.18% | -3 min | 4.7% |
| Spirit Airlines | 237 | 70.5% | 0.00% | 0 min | 7.2% |
Delta Air Lines flew 77.1% of the 10,100 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.37% of its flights here against 0.00% for Spirit Airlines.
Southwest Airlines arrived on time 17.4 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 10.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 78.8%
- Feb: 81.3%
- Mar: 76.5%
- Apr: 77.9%
- May: 77.8%
- Jun: 75.0%
- Jul: 69.5%
- Aug: 75.7%
- Sep: 89.1%
- Oct: 85.3%
- Nov: 84.7%
- Dec: 75.2%
July is historically the weakest month and September the strongest, a spread of 19.6 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 69.7% from 321 flights
- August 2023: 68.7% from 304 flights
- September 2023: 87.5% from 311 flights
- October 2023: 85.1% from 316 flights
- November 2023: 85.0% from 300 flights
- December 2023: 83.1% from 237 flights
- January 2024: 80.0% from 206 flights
- February 2024: 90.3% from 206 flights
- March 2024: 76.2% from 227 flights
- April 2024: 76.2% from 235 flights
- May 2024: 78.2% from 262 flights
- June 2024: 76.4% from 272 flights
- July 2024: 62.7% from 277 flights
- August 2024: 75.6% from 268 flights
- September 2024: 88.0% from 267 flights
- October 2024: 87.1% from 281 flights
- November 2024: 87.0% from 255 flights
- December 2024: 72.8% from 250 flights
- January 2025: 78.6% from 238 flights
- February 2025: 77.4% from 230 flights
- March 2025: 79.8% from 272 flights
- April 2025: 76.7% from 243 flights
- May 2025: 70.6% from 289 flights
- June 2025: 66.4% from 306 flights
- July 2025: 78.0% from 317 flights
- August 2025: 82.7% from 313 flights
- September 2025: 92.0% from 287 flights
- October 2025: 83.8% from 314 flights
- November 2025: 82.0% from 263 flights
- December 2025: 70.4% from 270 flights
- January 2026: 78.0% from 234 flights
- February 2026: 77.0% from 225 flights
- March 2026: 73.2% from 271 flights
- April 2026: 80.4% from 280 flights
- May 2026: 84.3% from 310 flights
- June 2026: 81.9% from 323 flights
- July 2026: 66.3% from 320 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.5% against 78.0% in the 12 months before — improving by 1.5 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,100 ATL → CLE flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed