Carrier route record
AACLT→CMH
American Airlines · Charlotte to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,265
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 62%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CLT to CMH sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,265 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on CLT to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,240 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.90%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on CLT to CMH, 2,043 flights
These figures cover 1,265 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CLT to CMH
American flew 1,265 of the 2,043 flights on CLT to CMH, most of the route. Its 74.2% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 97.1% to American at 74.2%. 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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 34 | 97.1% | 48 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 52 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 739 | 78.7% | 64 min | 1.49% | B |
| American Airlines (this page) | 1,265 | 74.2% | 70 min | 1.90% | C |
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Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am7 flights—
- 8am–11am217 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm61 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm77 flights83.3%
- 5pm–8pm383 flights71.4%
- 8pm–5am520 flights69.3%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 69.3% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 520 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CLT to CMH through the year
July is the worst month at 57.1% on time, 32 points below January, the best at 89.4%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 133 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 63.3%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CLT to CMH runs when it is late
American on CLT to CMH often beats the schedule: 317 of 1,240 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 320 late arrivals split 106 under half an hour, 105 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 109 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early317 flights25.6%
- Within 15 min603 flights48.6%
- 15–29 min late106 flights8.5%
- 30–59 min late105 flights8.5%
- 1–2 hours late73 flights5.9%
- 2+ hours late36 flights2.9%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 1,240 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
56 of 346 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 16% of them. 30 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CLT to CMH
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 February 2026, 14 hours 34 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 February 2026 | 14 hours 34 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 October 2025 | 10 hours 48 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 3 August 2026 | 9 hours 16 minutes | Carrier |
| 16 February 2026 | 8 hours 42 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 March 2026 | 8 hours 12 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 61% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
61% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 13 to one. The split is drawn from 22,443 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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.90% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 347 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 86.7% on time across 1,263 flights, 13 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 13 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,265 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 American on CLT to CMH
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. January runs 89.4% on time and July 57.1%, a swing of 32 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,240 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to CMH, every carrier
- American on CMH to CLT, the return leg
- PSA Airlines on CLT to CMH78.7%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.