Columbus, OH · departure reliability
CMH
John Glenn Columbus International
- Departures
- 44,642
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #42 by volume
Columbus
John Glenn Columbus International lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 44,642 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,727 at 87.7% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 87.7% on time across 3,727 flights.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.05%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.7% on time here
These figures cover 45,000 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 8 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 87.7% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 65.4%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 500 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 13,053 | 82.0% | 66 min | 3.05% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 12,324 | 80.5% | 59 min | 1.02% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,146 | 80.8% | 105 min | 2.46% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,727 | 87.7% | 87 min | 1.40% | A |
| United Airlines | 3,275 | 72.9% | 82 min | 1.19% | C |
| Envoy Air | 3,087 | 79.9% | 86 min | 1.07% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,623 | 75.1% | 88 min | 3.94% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,284 | 73.2% | 110 min | 3.19% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,163 | 74.2% | 78 min | 3.53% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 500 | 65.4% | 85 min | 2.20% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 460 | 70.9% | 49 min | 1.30% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 3.9% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Busiest routes out of CMH
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from CMH, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 80.1%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMH to ORD · Chicago | 4,841 | 74.5% | 89 min | 2.46% | C |
| CMH to ATL · Atlanta | 3,160 | 85.9% | 82 min | 1.52% | A |
| CMH to LGA · New York | 3,075 | 78.9% | 72 min | 4.49% | B− |
| CMH to MCO · Orlando | 2,168 | 77.9% | 74 min | 1.43% | B |
| CMH to DCA · Washington | 2,055 | 69.3% | 69 min | 3.31% | C− |
| CMH to EWR · Newark | 2,046 | 81.8% | 63 min | 4.01% | B− |
| CMH to CLT · Charlotte | 2,028 | 84.6% | 82 min | 2.02% | B |
| CMH to BOS · Boston | 2,002 | 82.6% | 63 min | 2.00% | B |
| CMH to DEN · Denver | 1,768 | 79.2% | 67 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| CMH to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,728 | 78.7% | 104 min | 2.49% | B |
| CMH to JFK · New York | 1,631 | 83.6% | 68 min | 3.49% | B− |
| CMH to DTW · Detroit | 1,407 | 85.2% | 92 min | 0.85% | A+ |
| CMH to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,378 | 79.6% | 79 min | 3.19% | B− |
| CMH to MDW · Chicago | 1,251 | 80.8% | 60 min | 1.44% | B |
| CMH to PHX · Phoenix | 1,169 | 82.4% | 108 min | 1.28% | B |
| CMH to MIA · Miami | 1,121 | 82.3% | 67 min | 0.36% | B+ |
| CMH to IAD · Washington | 1,061 | 84.3% | 79 min | 1.60% | B |
| CMH to BWI · Baltimore | 1,051 | 87.4% | 67 min | 1.90% | A |
| CMH to BNA · Nashville | 1,022 | 83.1% | 51 min | 0.78% | B+ |
| CMH to LAS · Las Vegas | 911 | 79.2% | 57 min | 0.44% | B+ |
| CMH to TPA · Tampa | 902 | 84.1% | 54 min | 1.00% | B |
| CMH to MSP · Minneapolis | 853 | 83.9% | 94 min | 1.06% | B |
| CMH to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 836 | 77.5% | 66 min | 2.87% | B |
| CMH to STL · St. Louis | 672 | 84.3% | 67 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| CMH to RSW · Fort Myers | 651 | 79.8% | 65 min | 1.54% | B |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave CMH
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 22 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12,268 flights89.5%
- 8am–11am7,534 flights86.7%
- 11am–2pm7,657 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm6,838 flights71.8%
- 5pm–8pm8,298 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am2,047 flights67.2%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.5% of the time, against 67.2% for the overnight window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 12,268 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When CMH runs late
CMH's year swings by 15 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.
December is the weak month at 70.7% on time, against 85.2% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 4,031 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 83.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.9%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why CMH gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 647,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 647,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 647,204 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 89.5% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.05% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
7.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route are the a little over an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
44,642 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
What to do with this
Flying out of CMH
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.2% on time and December 70.7%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 43,625 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH delay questions
How often is Columbus (CMH) delayed?
About one flight in five arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.9% of the 44,642 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Columbus (CMH)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 87.7% on time across 3,727 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 65.4%, a gap of 22 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Columbus (CMH)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 67.2%, 22 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 December delays on Columbus (CMH)?
December is the weakest month at 70.7% on time, compared with 85.2% in September. Across the year that is 15 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
- CMH to ORD — Chicago74.5%
- CMH to ATL — Atlanta85.9%
- CMH to LGA — New York78.9%
- CMH to MCO — Orlando77.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.0%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.5%
- American Airlines on-time record80.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.