Cincinnati, OH · departure reliability
CVG
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International
- Departures
- 33,638
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Carriers
- 11
- US rank
- #49 by volume
Cincinnati
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International lands a B, about a point 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 33,638 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 7,637 at 84.0% on time.
Delta Air Lines is the most reliable of the eleven carriers covered here at 84.0% on time across 7,637 flights.
Key figures
On time
78.5%
Departures arriving under 15 minutes late at their destination
Avg delay
80 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.90%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Delta
84.0% on time here
These figures cover 34,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airlines run best out of CVG
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 84.0% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 59.3%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 915 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 7,637 | 84.0% | 75 min | 1.20% | B |
| Republic Airways | 4,938 | 80.0% | 71 min | 3.10% | B− |
| Allegiant Air | 3,526 | 75.5% | 80 min | 0.43% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlines | 3,230 | 79.5% | 86 min | 1.42% | B |
| American Airlines | 3,003 | 75.0% | 88 min | 2.43% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 2,849 | 72.7% | 105 min | 3.65% | C− |
| Envoy Air | 2,543 | 78.0% | 70 min | 1.65% | B |
| United Airlines | 2,298 | 79.4% | 74 min | 1.35% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 2,270 | 81.1% | 60 min | 1.19% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 915 | 59.3% | 108 min | 5.36% | D− |
| Alaska Airlines | 429 | 63.5% | 56 min | 1.63% | D |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.4% 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 CVG
Route-level records vary far more than the airport average. These are the 25 busiest departures from CVG, each with its own on-time rate against the airport-wide 78.5%.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVG to ORD · Chicago | 4,590 | 70.1% | 83 min | 3.09% | C− |
| CVG to ATL · Atlanta | 3,024 | 86.0% | 76 min | 1.52% | A |
| CVG to BOS · Boston | 1,907 | 79.4% | 64 min | 2.78% | B |
| CVG to CLT · Charlotte | 1,798 | 78.8% | 103 min | 2.06% | B |
| CVG to MCO · Orlando | 1,779 | 78.6% | 77 min | 1.01% | B |
| CVG to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,752 | 74.4% | 79 min | 3.42% | C− |
| CVG to DEN · Denver | 1,531 | 81.2% | 77 min | 1.05% | B |
| CVG to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,137 | 78.3% | 101 min | 2.73% | B |
| CVG to DCA · Washington | 1,018 | 61.7% | 97 min | 5.30% | D− |
| CVG to MIA · Miami | 1,012 | 78.6% | 74 min | 0.79% | B+ |
| CVG to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 990 | 75.5% | 72 min | 1.31% | B |
| CVG to MSP · Minneapolis | 833 | 85.2% | 107 min | 0.72% | A+ |
| CVG to SLC · Salt Lake City | 820 | 83.3% | 71 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| CVG to SEA · Seattle | 791 | 73.4% | 58 min | 1.14% | C |
| CVG to TPA · Tampa | 728 | 79.5% | 79 min | 0.82% | B+ |
| CVG to BWI · Baltimore | 720 | 84.9% | 66 min | 1.39% | B |
| CVG to JFK · New York | 688 | 86.4% | 71 min | 3.34% | A− |
| CVG to IAH · Houston | 686 | 84.8% | 74 min | 1.02% | B |
| CVG to RSW · Fort Myers | 679 | 84.9% | 64 min | 0.88% | B+ |
| CVG to LAS · Las Vegas | 673 | 81.1% | 83 min | 1.49% | B |
| CVG to PHX · Phoenix | 625 | 81.5% | 104 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| CVG to IAD · Washington | 547 | 86.3% | 70 min | 0.91% | A+ |
| CVG to MDW · Chicago | 494 | 83.4% | 63 min | 1.21% | B |
| CVG to LGA · New York | 464 | 75.8% | 98 min | 5.17% | B− |
| CVG to BNA · Nashville | 460 | 82.5% | 49 min | 0.87% | B+ |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave CVG
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against 25 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am9,429 flights87.2%
- 8am–11am5,334 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm5,240 flights78.7%
- 2pm–5pm6,322 flights74.1%
- 5pm–8pm5,752 flights66.9%
- 8pm–5am1,561 flights67.7%
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 87.2% of the time, against 66.9% for the evening window. That is 20 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 CVG runs late
CVG's year swings by 18 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 67.7% on time, against 85.4% 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 82.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 74.8%. 8 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why CVG 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 570,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 26%National Airspace System
- 7%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 570,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 87.2% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.90% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.27%.
8.5% 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.
33,638 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 CVG
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 85.4% on time and December 67.7%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
CVG delay questions
How often is Cincinnati (CVG) 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 21.5% of the 33,638 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 Cincinnati (CVG)?
Delta Air Lines leads at 84.0% on time across 7,637 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 59.3%, a gap of 25 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 Cincinnati (CVG)?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 66.9%, 20 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 Cincinnati (CVG)?
December is the weakest month at 67.7% on time, compared with 85.4% in September. Across the year that is 18 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.