Route reliability record
BWI→CMH
Baltimore to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,053
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 337 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 1,053 BWI to CMH flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly BWI to CMH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.0% of the time and Tuesday flights 85.8%, against 77.9% 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
77.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,036 completed flights
Avg delay
62 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.52%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Southwest
77.9% on time across 1,053 flights
These figures cover 1,053 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 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 BWI 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 1,053 | 77.9% | 62 min | 1.52% | B |
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Baltimore to Columbus
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → CMHWashington to Columbus | United Airlines | 82.8% | 83.0% | 0.24% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → CMHWashington to Columbus | Republic Airways | 79.9% | 81.4% | 1.90% | 11am–2pm, Tue | YX 3646 22:10 |
| 3. DCA → CMHWashington to Columbus | Republic Airways | 78.0% | 80.1% | 2.63% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 4. BWI → CMHBaltimore to Columbus | Southwest Airlines | 76.7% | 77.9% | 1.52% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → CMHWashington to Columbus | PSA Airlines | 67.2% | 73.7% | 8.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 24 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am278 flights92.0%
- 11am–2pm95 flights88.3%
- 2pm–5pm155 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm181 flights67.6%
- 8pm–5am344 flights70.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 92.0% of the time, against 67.6% for the evening window. That is 24 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 344 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter BWI 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 BWI to CMH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 92.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.6%, a wide gap of 24.4 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am92.0%
- 11am–2pm88.3%
- 2–5pm74.0%
- 5–8pm67.6%
- 8pm–5am70.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 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.
August is the worst month at 64.4% on time, 24 points below February, the best at 88.1%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 97 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 67.8%, a spread of 18 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 55% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 55%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
55% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 14,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 18 to one. The split is drawn from 14,154 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.52% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.9% 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 337 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.2% on time across 1,044 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 1,053 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CMH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 1,053 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 77.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 1,036 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
BWI to CMH questions
How often is BWI to CMH delayed?
Roughly 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 22.1% of the 1,053 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is BWI to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
77.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on BWI to CMH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 92.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.6%, 24 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 August delays on BWI to CMH?
August is the weakest month at 64.4% on time, compared with 88.1% in February. Across the year that is 24 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 BWI — the return legseparate record
- Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall (BWI) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- BWI to ATL, a related route79.9%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- BWI to MCO, a related route75.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record77.9%
- 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. BWI to CMH and CMH to BWI 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.