Carrier route record
WNCMH→DCA
Southwest Airlines · Columbus to Washington
- Flights
- 350
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CMH to DCA earns a D, which is as low as this site's scale goes for a reason. Only 57.9% of flights arrive inside the 15-minute window, 19 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. Late arrivals average about an hour. Treat any tight connection here as a coin flip. That rests on 350 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, PSA Airlines, flew 453 at 70.6% on time.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so Southwest on CMH to DCA runs 19 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 194 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
57.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 342 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.14%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
69.2%
Every carrier on CMH to DCA, 2,051 flights
These figures cover 350 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Southwest against every carrier on CMH to DCA
Southwest flew 350 of the 2,051 flights on CMH to DCA, about 17% of it. Its 57.9% on time is 11 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 69.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 88.7% to Southwest at 57.9%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 Airlines (this page)thin 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.
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.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 3 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm89 flights69.8%
- 2pm–5pm128 flights52.0%
- 5pm–8pm133 flights55.7%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 45% to 75%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 69.8% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 52.0%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 133 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CMH to DCA through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights86.7%
- Oct–Dec 202583 flights61.4%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights47.0%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights55.1%
- Jul–Sep 202661 flights57.9%
Scale runs 40% to 90%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 57.9% on time across 350 flights.
Southwest on CMH to DCA did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 86.7% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 47.0%, a swing of 40 points on roughly 70 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 64.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 42.0%, a spread of 23 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on CMH to DCA runs when it is late
The 144 late arrivals split 48 under half an hour, 45 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 51 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early37 flights10.8%
- Within 15 min161 flights47.1%
- 15–29 min late48 flights14.0%
- 30–59 min late45 flights13.2%
- 1–2 hours late29 flights8.5%
- 2+ hours late22 flights6.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 342 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 119 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 14 made it up before arrival. In the other direction, 39 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on CMH to DCA
The latest arrival of the period was on 5 July 2026, 7 hours 13 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as national airspace system delay.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 5 July 2026 | 7 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 August 2026 | 7 hours 7 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 18 July 2026 | 4 hours 39 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 5 March 2026 | 4 hours 38 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
National Airspace System accounts for 56% of the 9,639 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 56%National Airspace System
- 27%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
56% 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 5,372 minutes out of 9,639, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 9,639 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.14% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 1.14%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
14.9% 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 11am–2pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.1% on time across 349 flights, 19 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 19 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 350 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.
What to do with this
Booking Southwest on CMH to DCA
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 350 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 57.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 342 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to DCA, every carrier
- Southwest on DCA to CMH, the return leg
- Envoy Air on CMH to DCA88.7%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to DCA70.6%
- Republic Airways on CMH to DCA67.3%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.