Route profile
CLE→ATL
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Cleveland to Atlanta, 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 72% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 10,101 flights. How this is calculated
CLE → ATL arrives on time 83.8% of the time; the return trip, ATL → CLE, arrives on time 78.6% of the time, a 5.1-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLE → ATL spends 25.4 minutes on the ground on a 554-mile trip: 14.2 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLE and 11.2 minutes from touchdown to gate at ATL.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
The airline matters unusually much on this route, a wider carrier-to-carrier gap than 98% of 2,692 comparable routes.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 87.9% of the time, against 63.9% for Frontier Airlines, flying the exact same route.
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 2,692 in the comparison.
Why CLE → ATL flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLE → ATL cancelled 138 of 10,101 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 73. The reason filed most often was the airline, 73.9% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 99 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 138 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.
102 cancellations, 73.9% of the total.
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
35 cancellations, 25.4% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
1 cancellation, 0.7% 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.
138 coded cancellations were recorded on CLE → ATL; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
31 min late
against a median of 11 min early
Percentiles over 10,101 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ATL after arriving from CLE.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 28% | High risk |
| 45 min | 16% | High risk |
| 60 min | 10% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 5.8% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 3.4% | 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 1.37% of the time and diverts 0.24% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 9,939 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 31 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 10,101 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLE → ATL flights departing 9 AM–12 PM arrived on time 90.6% of the time, against 71.9% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 18.7 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 86.6% on time from 220 flights
- 6 AM: 92.0% on time from 1,165 flights
- 7 AM: 85.8% on time from 1,228 flights
- 8 AM: 87.8% on time from 845 flights
- 9 AM: 87.7% on time from 181 flights
- 10 AM: 91.9% on time from 702 flights
- 11 AM: 89.8% on time from 558 flights
- 12 PM: 87.1% on time from 728 flights
- 1 PM: 80.8% on time from 477 flights
- 2 PM: 83.4% on time from 800 flights
- 3 PM: 76.3% on time from 339 flights
- 4 PM: 84.4% on time from 606 flights
- 5 PM: 77.5% on time from 642 flights
- 6 PM: 75.9% on time from 630 flights
- 7 PM: 72.4% on time from 821 flights
- 8 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why CLE → ATL runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
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 CLE → ATL. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLE → ATL, at 39.2%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 9 AM–12 PM departures arrived on time 90.6% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 71.9%.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
Bad weather raises cancellations by a similar amount at both ends of CLE to ATL: 2.3 times the normal rate at CLE and 3.3 times at ATL. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: CLE 3.8% against 1.6%, ATL 3.4% against 1.0%. 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 | CLE | ATL |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.8% | 3.4% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.6% | 1.0% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 69.9% | 66.5% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 82.6% | 80.2% |
| Departures in bad weather | 17,314 | 105,854 |
Southwest Airlines (1.7% cancelled against 4.2% for the other carriers at CLE) and Delta Air Lines (2.0% cancelled against 4.1% for the other carriers at CLE) cancelled fewer departures from CLE in bad weather than the other carriers there did in the same months. None of the route’s other carriers was clearly worse. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from CLE to compare.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at CLE
All departures from CLE| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 2,231 | 1.7%below the others | 4.2% |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,302 | 2.0%below the others | 4.1% |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,786 | 3.5%about level | 3.8% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from CLE and ATL, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from CLE on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: CLE (airlines), ATL, 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 | 7,786 | 87.9% | 1.27% | -12 min | 4.4% |
| Frontier Airlines | 1,522 | 63.9% | 2.37% | 2 min | 12.9% |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 82.4% | 0.54% | -7 min | 5.1% |
| Spirit Airlines | 237 | 78.0% | 0.00% | -8 min | 9.7% |
Delta Air Lines flew 77.1% of the 10,101 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.37% of its flights here against 0.00% for Spirit Airlines.
Delta Air Lines arrived on time 24.0 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 8.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 76.6%
- Feb: 85.0%
- Mar: 84.2%
- Apr: 87.7%
- May: 82.1%
- Jun: 82.8%
- Jul: 77.8%
- Aug: 82.6%
- Sep: 90.4%
- Oct: 90.4%
- Nov: 85.7%
- Dec: 80.6%
January is historically the weakest month and October the strongest, a spread of 13.8 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 72.2% from 321 flights
- August 2023: 74.8% from 304 flights
- September 2023: 90.4% from 311 flights
- October 2023: 90.2% from 316 flights
- November 2023: 81.7% from 301 flights
- December 2023: 86.1% from 237 flights
- January 2024: 78.5% from 206 flights
- February 2024: 92.2% from 205 flights
- March 2024: 80.7% from 228 flights
- April 2024: 84.7% from 235 flights
- May 2024: 82.3% from 262 flights
- June 2024: 84.8% from 270 flights
- July 2024: 74.2% from 278 flights
- August 2024: 86.0% from 268 flights
- September 2024: 86.5% from 267 flights
- October 2024: 92.2% from 282 flights
- November 2024: 91.8% from 257 flights
- December 2024: 76.7% from 249 flights
- January 2025: 73.7% from 237 flights
- February 2025: 74.7% from 230 flights
- March 2025: 88.2% from 272 flights
- April 2025: 90.8% from 244 flights
- May 2025: 80.8% from 289 flights
- June 2025: 81.6% from 305 flights
- July 2025: 86.3% from 317 flights
- August 2025: 87.4% from 313 flights
- September 2025: 94.1% from 287 flights
- October 2025: 89.2% from 314 flights
- November 2025: 84.4% from 263 flights
- December 2025: 79.3% from 271 flights
- January 2026: 77.7% from 233 flights
- February 2026: 88.8% from 226 flights
- March 2026: 83.1% from 270 flights
- April 2026: 87.7% from 280 flights
- May 2026: 83.0% from 311 flights
- June 2026: 82.2% from 322 flights
- July 2026: 77.6% from 320 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 84.6% against 84.3% in the 12 months before — broadly unchanged.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 10,101 CLE → ATL 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