Route reliability record
ATL→CMH
Atlanta to Columbus
- Flights
- 3,159
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 447 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route 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 about 55 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 3,159 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,108 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
82.1% on time across 2,693 flights
These figures cover 3,159 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 6 | 83.3% | 115 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 2,693 | 82.1% | 54 min | 1.52% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 326 | 76.5% | 49 min | 0.61% | B+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 134 | 57.3% | 63 min | 2.24% | D |
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 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am195 flights94.2%
- 8am–11am530 flights83.0%
- 11am–2pm433 flights86.0%
- 2pm–5pm880 flights79.5%
- 5pm–8pm455 flights73.7%
- 8pm–5am666 flights76.7%
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 94.2% of the time, against 73.7% for the evening window. That is 21 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 880 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route'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.
July is the worst month at 70.5% on time, 15 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 298 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 75.5%. 13 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 47% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 47%Carrier
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%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. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 33,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 32,981 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 47%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 16,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.16%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% 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 about 55 minutes kind, 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 85.9% on time across 3,160 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 3,159 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.
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 70.5%, a swing of 15 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,108 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 arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.5% of the 3,159 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is ATL to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
80.5% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, 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 94.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 73.7%, 21 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 70.5% on time, compared with 85.4% in April. 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 ATL — the return legseparate record
- Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on-time record83.3%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record82.1%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.