Columbus, OH · departure reliability
CMH
John Glenn Columbus International
- Departures
- 44,692
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #42 by volume
Columbus
John Glenn Columbus International lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.4%. 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 44,692 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 3,741 at 87.1% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 87.1% on time across 3,741 flights.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
2.11%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
87.1% on time here
These figures cover 45,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 7 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 87.1% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 65.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 477 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 12,935 | 81.5% | 66 min | 3.16% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 12,353 | 80.6% | 60 min | 1.02% | B |
| American Airlines | 4,107 | 79.9% | 105 min | 2.61% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 3,741 | 87.1% | 84 min | 1.55% | A |
| United Airlines | 3,267 | 72.6% | 80 min | 1.10% | C |
| Envoy Air | 3,087 | 78.9% | 82 min | 0.97% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 1,618 | 72.2% | 94 min | 4.26% | C− |
| Spirit Airlines | 1,372 | 74.8% | 80 min | 3.72% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,272 | 70.9% | 111 min | 3.07% | C− |
| Frontier Airlines | 477 | 65.7% | 83 min | 2.73% | C |
| Alaska Airlines | 463 | 69.6% | 49 min | 1.30% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 4.3% 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 79.6%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMH to ORD · Chicago | 4,791 | 73.7% | 87 min | 2.19% | C |
| CMH to ATL · Atlanta | 3,199 | 85.6% | 81 min | 1.69% | A |
| CMH to LGA · New York | 3,099 | 78.0% | 73 min | 4.81% | B− |
| CMH to MCO · Orlando | 2,221 | 78.1% | 77 min | 1.58% | B |
| CMH to DCA · Washington | 2,056 | 68.3% | 72 min | 3.70% | C− |
| CMH to CLT · Charlotte | 2,027 | 83.1% | 83 min | 2.22% | B |
| CMH to BOS · Boston | 2,003 | 81.5% | 64 min | 2.15% | B |
| CMH to EWR · Newark | 1,995 | 81.5% | 64 min | 4.21% | B− |
| CMH to DEN · Denver | 1,766 | 78.1% | 67 min | 0.68% | B+ |
| CMH to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,728 | 78.4% | 101 min | 2.43% | B |
| CMH to JFK · New York | 1,668 | 82.7% | 66 min | 3.54% | B− |
| CMH to DTW · Detroit | 1,361 | 84.6% | 94 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| CMH to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,337 | 77.9% | 76 min | 3.29% | B− |
| CMH to MDW · Chicago | 1,263 | 80.8% | 60 min | 1.27% | B |
| CMH to PHX · Phoenix | 1,185 | 83.1% | 115 min | 1.35% | B |
| CMH to IAD · Washington | 1,129 | 83.8% | 80 min | 1.59% | B |
| CMH to MIA · Miami | 1,092 | 80.9% | 65 min | 0.46% | B+ |
| CMH to BWI · Baltimore | 1,055 | 87.6% | 68 min | 1.90% | A |
| CMH to BNA · Nashville | 1,005 | 82.7% | 50 min | 0.80% | B+ |
| CMH to LAS · Las Vegas | 932 | 79.7% | 57 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| CMH to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 907 | 77.0% | 68 min | 2.65% | B |
| CMH to TPA · Tampa | 904 | 84.0% | 54 min | 1.00% | B |
| CMH to MSP · Minneapolis | 857 | 83.3% | 88 min | 1.40% | B |
| CMH to STL · St. Louis | 672 | 83.7% | 66 min | 0.74% | B+ |
| CMH to RSW · Fort Myers | 647 | 80.1% | 65 min | 1.55% | 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 23 points, against 21 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am12,273 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am7,442 flights86.4%
- 11am–2pm7,694 flights81.0%
- 2pm–5pm6,794 flights70.9%
- 5pm–8pm8,420 flights68.2%
- 8pm–5am2,069 flights66.2%
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 89.3% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
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.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 75.7%. 7 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 668,000 reported delay minutes.
- 37%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 29%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
37% 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 668,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 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 89.3% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.11% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.22%.
7.6% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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.
44,692 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.
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 20.4% of the 44,692 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% 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 87.1% on time across 3,741 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 65.7%, a gap of 21 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 89.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 23 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
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.