Route reliability record
CMH→DCA
Columbus to Washington
- Flights
- 2,051
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 323 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.8% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% 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 2,051 CMH to DCA flights, of which PSA Airlines flew 453 at 70.6% on time.
Best time to fly CMH to DCA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Saturday flights 78.4%, against 69.2% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 8 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 81 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
69.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,969 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
PSA
70.6% on time across 453 flights
These figures cover 2,051 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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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 | 258 | 88.7% | 50 min | 0.78% | A+ |
| PSA Airlines | 453 | 70.6% | 110 min | 7.51% | C− |
| Republic Airways | 990 | 67.3% | 61 min | 3.84% | C− |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 350 | 57.9% | 67 min | 1.14% | D |
PSA Airlines cancels 7.5% 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.
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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 → IADColumbus to Washington | Republic Airways | 88.8% | 89.7% | 0.95% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 3430 06:00 |
| 2. CMH → BWIColumbus to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 85.9% | 87.2% | 1.53% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 3. CMH → IADColumbus to Washington | United Airlines | 78.2% | 78.8% | 0.74% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. CMH → DCAColumbus to Washington | PSA Airlines | 65.3% | 70.6% | 7.51% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 5. CMH → DCAColumbus to Washington | Republic Airways | 64.7% | 67.3% | 3.84% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 31 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am348 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am345 flights83.8%
- 11am–2pm435 flights66.3%
- 2pm–5pm462 flights56.4%
- 5pm–8pm461 flights59.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 56.4% for the afternoon window. That is 31 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 462 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CMH to DCA 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 DCA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 56.4%, a wide gap of 31.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am83.8%
- 11am–2pm66.3%
- 2–5pm56.4%
- 5–8pm59.4%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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 78.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 62.7%, a spread of 16 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 43% of the 44,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 43%National Airspace System
- 34%Late-arriving aircraft
- 20%Carrier
- 3%Extreme weather
34% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 44,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 43,526 reported delay minutes.
43% 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 44,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 3.80%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in 25 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
10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection 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 77.6% on time across 2,051 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,051 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 3.80% 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. 1,969 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 30.8% of the 2,051 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to DCA?
PSA Airlines leads at 70.6% on time across 453 flights. Republic Airways is at the other end on 67.3%, 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 87.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 56.4%, 31 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 DCA88.7%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to DCA70.6%
- Republic Airways on CMH to DCA67.3%
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to DCA57.9%
- CMH to ORD, a related route75.4%
- BOS to DCA, a related route72.6%
- CMH to ATL, a related route84.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record88.7%
- PSA Airlines on-time record70.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record67.3%
- 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.