Route reliability record
ATL→CMH
Atlanta to Columbus
- Flights
- 3,130
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 447 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 3,130 ATL to CMH flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly ATL to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 88.9%, against 80.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,080 completed flights
Avg delay
56 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.41%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
81.6% on time across 2,679 flights
These figures cover 3,130 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ATL to CMH
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 2,679 | 81.6% | 56 min | 1.38% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 309 | 75.8% | 52 min | 0.65% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 142 | 58.4% | 64 min | 3.52% | D− |
Flight by flight
Flights on ATL to CMH
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 20 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am200 flights92.3%
- 8am–11am516 flights86.3%
- 11am–2pm375 flights86.5%
- 2pm–5pm943 flights78.6%
- 5pm–8pm436 flights71.9%
- 8pm–5am660 flights75.1%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.3% of the time, against 71.9% 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. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 943 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ATL to CMH by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ATL to CMH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 92.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 71.9%, a wide gap of 20.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am92.3%
- 8–11am86.3%
- 11am–2pm86.5%
- 2–5pm78.6%
- 5–8pm71.9%
- 8pm–5am75.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
July is the worst month at 67.2% on time, 18 points below April, the best at 85.4%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 294 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 73.9%, a spread of 15 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 35,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 13%National Airspace System
- 5%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. Across 35,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 to one. The split is drawn from 34,551 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 16,000 of the 35,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.41% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 447 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.8% on time across 3,129 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 3,130 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CMH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. April runs 85.4% on time and July 67.2%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,080 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ATL to CMH questions
How often is ATL to CMH delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.0% of the 3,130 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ATL to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
80.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ATL to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 71.9%, 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 July delays on ATL to CMH?
July is the weakest month at 67.2% on time, compared with 85.4% in April. 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
- CMH to ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on ATL to CMH81.6%
- Southwest Airlines on ATL to CMH75.8%
- Frontier Airlines on ATL to CMH58.4%
- ATL to LGA, a related route72.3%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- ATL to MCO, a related route70.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record81.6%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record75.8%
- Frontier Airlines on-time record58.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. ATL to CMH and CMH to ATL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.