Route profile
CLE→TPA
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Cleveland to Tampa, 927 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 20% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 3,409 flights. How this is calculated · What counts as on time
CLE → TPA arrives on time 75.6% of the time; the return trip, TPA → CLE, arrives on time 78.1% of the time, a 2.5-point gap between the two directions of the same city pair.
CLE → TPA spends 24.8 minutes on the ground on a 927-mile trip: 16.3 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CLE and 8.6 minutes from touchdown to gate at TPA.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What sets this route apart
Where CLE to TPA differs most from similar routes by hour, weekday, month and airline, July 2023 – July 2026.
CLE to TPA struggles most at 7 PM: 56.7% of its flights scheduled then arrive on time, 10.3 points behind the 67.0% on routes of similar length at the same hour. Against all other routes the gap is 11.1 points.
Sunday is the day CLE to TPA slips furthest against routes of similar length, 68.9% on time where they average 74.0%, 5.1 points lower. Against all other routes the gap is 5.9 points.
In January, CLE to TPA runs 13.4 points below routes of similar length, 64.9% on time to 78.3%. Against all other routes the gap is 14.2 points.
CLE to TPA against comparable routes
July 2023 – July 2026| Measure | This route | Compared with | Them | Gap | Flights behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hour: 7 PM departures | 56.7% | routes of similar length | 67.0% | −10.3 pts | 164 here, 184,891 there |
| Weekday: Sunday | 68.9% | routes of similar length | 74.0% | −5.1 pts | 544 here, 433,710 there |
| Month: January | 64.9% | routes of similar length | 78.3% | −13.4 pts | 299 here, 221,206 there |
Each comparison pools the flights of other routes, with this route’s own left out. Similar length means within 15% of this route’s 927 miles, with at least 5 such routes. A bucket is set against the most comparable group that has enough flights: similar length, then the same origin (at least 3 routes), then all other routes. Hours, weekdays and months appear only where both sides have 120 completed flights, and airlines where both have 600. The gap must be at least 2 points and 2 standard errors, and only the largest gap each way is kept per measure. These are differences in the flights counted, not causes.
Why CLE → TPA flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CLE → TPA cancelled 69 of 3,409 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 49. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 52.2% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 95 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 69 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
36 cancellations, 52.2% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
32 cancellations, 46.4% 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, 1.4% 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. With only one or two carriers on the route, the split mostly reflects how they file. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
69 coded cancellations were recorded on CLE → TPA; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
60 min late
against a median of 8 min early
CLE → TPA has an average that understates its risk: a typical arrival is 8 min early, but the worst tenth are 68 minutes worse than that. If the trip has something unmissable at the end of it, the median is the wrong number to plan against.
Percentiles over 3,409 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at TPA after arriving from CLE.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 36% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 24% | High risk |
| 60 min | 16% | High risk |
| 90 min | 9.9% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 6.2% | Some 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 2.02% of the time and diverts 0.18% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 3,334 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 60 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 3,409 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CLE → TPA flights departing 5–9 AM arrived on time 84.3% of the time, against 64.3% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 20.0 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 82.4% on time from 225 flights
- 6 AM: 82.6% on time from 183 flights
- 7 AM: too few flights to score
- 8 AM: 86.3% on time from 394 flights
- 9 AM: 86.7% on time from 228 flights
- 10 AM: 85.4% on time from 156 flights
- 11 AM: 72.1% on time from 200 flights
- 12 PM: 78.8% on time from 146 flights
- 1 PM: too few flights to score
- 2 PM: 71.1% on time from 190 flights
- 3 PM: too few flights to score
- 4 PM: 75.5% on time from 154 flights
- 5 PM: 65.9% on time from 253 flights
- 6 PM: 67.3% on time from 315 flights
- 7 PM: 56.7% on time from 168 flights
- 8 PM: 66.3% on time from 167 flights
- 9 PM: 70.6% on time from 269 flights
- 10 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Why CLE → TPA 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
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for CLE → TPA. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed. What the five causes mean
Late-arriving aircraft is the largest cause on CLE → TPA, at 52.3%: flights here mostly leave late because the plane came in late, and the day shows it: 5–9 AM departures arrived on time 84.3% of the time and 6–9 PM departures 64.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontier Airlines | 2,770 | 73.9% | 2.35% | -8 min | 10.7% |
| United Airlines | 480 | 86.3% | 0.63% | -13 min | 5.7% |
Frontier Airlines flew 85.2% of the 3,250 flights listed. Frontier Airlines cancelled 2.35% of its flights here against 0.63% for United Airlines.
United Airlines arrived on time 12.4 percentage points more often than Frontier Airlines on this route.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Tuesday is historically the most reliable day and Sunday the least, a gap of 12.3 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 64.9%
- Feb: 76.5%
- Mar: 73.5%
- Apr: 83.2%
- May: 79.2%
- Jun: 73.6%
- Jul: 65.6%
- Aug: 70.5%
- Sep: 81.5%
- Oct: 80.5%
- Nov: 82.1%
- Dec: 76.0%
January is historically the weakest month and April the strongest, a spread of 18.3 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: too few flights to score (67)
- August 2023: too few flights to score (74)
- September 2023: too few flights to score (113)
- October 2023: 73.2% from 127 flights
- November 2023: 82.7% from 133 flights
- December 2023: 78.7% from 124 flights
- January 2024: 63.0% from 130 flights
- February 2024: too few flights to score (114)
- March 2024: 62.6% from 134 flights
- April 2024: too few flights to score (102)
- May 2024: too few flights to score (84)
- June 2024: too few flights to score (65)
- July 2024: too few flights to score (70)
- August 2024: too few flights to score (59)
- September 2024: too few flights to score (70)
- October 2024: too few flights to score (74)
- November 2024: too few flights to score (66)
- December 2024: too few flights to score (87)
- January 2025: too few flights to score (95)
- February 2025: too few flights to score (106)
- March 2025: 77.6% from 138 flights
- April 2025: too few flights to score (117)
- May 2025: too few flights to score (96)
- June 2025: too few flights to score (69)
- July 2025: too few flights to score (68)
- August 2025: too few flights to score (68)
- September 2025: too few flights to score (60)
- October 2025: too few flights to score (54)
- November 2025: too few flights to score (64)
- December 2025: too few flights to score (83)
- January 2026: too few flights to score (80)
- February 2026: too few flights to score (85)
- March 2026: 80.0% from 138 flights
- April 2026: too few flights to score (106)
- May 2026: too few flights to score (107)
- June 2026: too few flights to score (90)
- July 2026: too few flights to score (92)
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 79.4% against 75.8% in the 12 months before — improving by 3.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 3,409 CLE → TPA 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