Route reliability record
CMH→CLT
Columbus to Charlotte
- Flights
- 2,042
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 347 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 2,042 CMH to CLT flights, of which American Airlines flew 1,263 at 86.7% on time.
Best time to fly CMH to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.5% of the time and Wednesday flights 92.2%, against 84.2% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 69 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,004 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.81%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
86.7% on time across 1,263 flights
These figures cover 2,042 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 14 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to CLT
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 86.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 79.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 739 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 35 | 91.4% | 120 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,263 | 86.7% | 96 min | 1.98% | A |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 5 | 80.0% | 50 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 739 | 79.5% | 77 min | 1.62% | B |
American leads PSA by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Columbus to Charlotte
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CMH → CLTColumbus to Charlotte | American Airlines | 85.0% | 86.7% | 1.98% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. CMH → CLTColumbus to Charlotte | PSA Airlines | 78.2% | 79.5% | 1.62% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 16 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am530 flights90.5%
- 8am–11am438 flights87.4%
- 11am–2pm372 flights83.9%
- 2pm–5pm343 flights78.2%
- 5pm–8pm323 flights77.1%
- 8pm–5am36 flights75.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.5% of the time, against 75.0% 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 530 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CMH to CLT 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 CMH to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 75.0%, a wide gap of 15.5 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.5%
- 8–11am87.4%
- 11am–2pm83.9%
- 2–5pm78.2%
- 5–8pm77.1%
- 8pm–5am75.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 16 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.
December is the weak month at 75.7% on time, against 91.8% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. May was the busiest month here, with 195 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 92.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 79.3%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 28,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 43%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 28,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 20 to one. The split is drawn from 27,710 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 43%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 12,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.05%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
6.0% 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 an hour and a half, 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 76.2% on time across 2,043 flights, 8 points below 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,042 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 CLT 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. September runs 91.8% on time and December 75.7%, a swing of 16 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,004 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to CLT questions
How often is CMH to CLT delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 15.8% of the 2,042 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to CLT?
American Airlines leads at 86.7% on time across 1,263 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 79.5%, a gap of 7 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CMH to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 75.0%, 16 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 December delays on CMH to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 75.7% on time, compared with 91.8% in September. Across the year that is 16 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
- CLT to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CMH to CLT86.7%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to CLT79.5%
- CMH to ORD, a related route75.4%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- CMH to ATL, a related route84.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record91.4%
- American Airlines on-time record86.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record80.0%
- 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. CMH to CLT and CLT to CMH are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed CMH to CLT’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.