Route reliability record
CMH→DCA
Columbus to Washington
- Flights
- 2,055
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 323 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about seven flights in ten arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,055 CMH to DCA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 971 at 67.8% on time.
Best time to fly CMH to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.2% of the time and Saturday flights 76.6%, against 69.3% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 83 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,983 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
67.8% on time across 971 flights
These figures cover 2,055 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to DCA
The two carriers here are closely matched: 3 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 315 | 89.1% | 45 min | 0.63% | A+ |
| Republic Airways | 971 | 67.8% | 57 min | 3.60% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 418 | 65.0% | 105 min | 6.46% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 351 | 60.2% | 67 min | 1.14% | D |
PSA Airlines cancels 6.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Columbus to Washington
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. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CMH → BWIColumbus to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 85.7% | 87.4% | 1.90% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. CMH → IADColumbus to Washington | Republic Airways | 85.1% | 86.9% | 2.08% | 5am–8am, Thu | YX 3430 06:00 |
| 3. CMH → IADColumbus to Washington | United Airlines | 79.1% | 79.7% | 0.77% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 4. CMH → DCAColumbus to Washington | Republic Airways | 65.4% | 67.8% | 3.60% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 5. CMH → DCAColumbus to Washington | PSA Airlines | 60.8% | 65.0% | 6.46% | 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 34 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am352 flights88.2%
- 8am–11am309 flights82.5%
- 11am–2pm450 flights70.9%
- 2pm–5pm450 flights54.4%
- 5pm–8pm494 flights58.8%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.2% of the time, against 54.4% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 494 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 53.5% on time, against 83.2% in October. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 182 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 76.6% on time and Friday the weakest at 64.5%. 12 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. National Airspace System accounts for 44% of the 42,000 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.
- 44%National Airspace System
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 14%Carrier
- 6%Extreme weather
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 42,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 42,080 reported delay minutes.
44% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 19,000 minutes out of 42,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 323 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 77.8% on time across 2,056 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,055 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 DCA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,983 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to DCA questions
How often is CMH to DCA delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 30.7% of the 2,055 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to DCA?
Republic Airways leads at 67.8% on time across 971 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 65.0%, a gap of 3 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 DCA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.2% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 54.4%, 34 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 DCA?
December is the weakest month at 53.5% on time, compared with 83.2% in October. Across the year that is 30 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
- DCA to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on CMH to DCA89.1%
- Republic Airways on CMH to DCA67.8%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to DCA65.0%
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to DCA60.2%
- CMH to ORD, a related route74.5%
- BOS to DCA, a related route74.0%
- CMH to ATL, a related route85.9%
- Envoy Air on-time record89.1%
- Republic Airways on-time record67.8%
- PSA Airlines on-time record65.0%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CMH to DCA and DCA to CMH 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.