Carrier route record

UACMH→IAD

United Airlines · Columbus to Washington

Flights: 388
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 37%
Carriers: 2

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with United Airlines.

United on CMH to IAD lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 388 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate United on CMH to IAD from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

79.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 385 completed flights

Avg delay

87 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.77%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

84.3%

Every carrier on CMH to IAD, 1,061 flights

These figures cover 388 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.

Carrier by carrier

United against every carrier on CMH to IAD

United flew 388 of the 1,061 flights on CMH to IAD, about 37% of it. Its 79.7% on time is 5 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 84.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 86.9% to United at 79.7%.

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.

On-time performance by carrier on CMH to IAD
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	673	86.9%	73 min	2.08%	A
United Airlines (this page)	388	79.7%	87 min	0.77%	B+

Departure window

When United runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am—
8am–11am156 flights87.0%
11am–2pm—
2pm–5pm94 flights66.0%
5pm–8pm46 flights76.1%
8pm–5am92 flights83.5%

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 87.0% of the time, against 66.0% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 156 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

United on CMH to IAD through the year

Jul–Sep 202591 flights82.4%
Oct–Dec 202575 flights73.3%
Jan–Mar 2026130 flights78.1%
Apr–Jun 202692 flights84.6%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 79.7% on time across 388 flights.

United on CMH to IAD did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 84.6% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 73.3%, a swing of 11 points on roughly 97 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, Saturday is the strongest day at 93.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 66.7%. 27 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why United runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 42% of the 6,770 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
42%
Carrier
40%
National Airspace System
15%
Extreme weather
3%

42% 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 6,770 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 15 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 6,770 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 40%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 2,703 of the 6,770 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations are rare at 0.77%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

7.0% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says 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 299 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 85.0% on time across 389 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 388 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 United on CMH to IAD

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 388 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 79.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 385 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures