Carrier route record

WNATL→CMH

Southwest Airlines · Atlanta to Columbus

Flights: 326
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 10%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on ATL to CMH lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 326 flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Southwest on ATL to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

76.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 324 completed flights

Avg delay

49 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.61%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

80.5%

Every carrier on ATL to CMH, 3,159 flights

These figures cover 326 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 3 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

Southwest against every carrier on ATL to CMH

Southwest flew 326 of the 3,159 flights on ATL to CMH, about 10% of it. Its 76.5% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 80.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Spirit at 83.3% to Frontier at 57.3%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on ATL to CMH
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 Airlines (this page)thin sample	326	76.5%	49 min	0.61%	B+
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	134	57.3%	63 min	2.24%	D

Departure window

When Southwest runs best on this route

Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 326 flights.

5am–8am—
8am–11am9 flights—
11am–2pm80 flights78.5%
2pm–5pm229 flights77.2%
5pm–8pm8 flights—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 70% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 11am–2pm window is the strongest at 78.5% on time. The full set of windows spans about a point.

Across the year

Southwest on ATL to CMH through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights77.2%
Oct–Dec 202591 flights78.0%
Jan–Mar 202683 flights82.7%
Apr–Jun 202660 flights65.0%

Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 76.5% on time across 326 flights.

Southwest on ATL to CMH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jan–Mar 2026 at 82.7% on time and its weakest Apr–Jun 2026 at 65.0%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 82 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 61.5%. 31 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why Southwest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 3,702 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
61%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
5%
Extreme weather
1%
Security
0%

61% 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 3,702 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 44 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 3,702 reported delay minutes.

Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

5.2% 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 last roughly 50 minutes, 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.7% on time across 326 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 326 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking Southwest on ATL to CMH

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 326 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 324 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures