Route reliability record
CMH→JFK
Columbus to New York
- Flights
- 1,570
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 483 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.7% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, more than four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,570 CMH to JFK flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Best time to fly CMH to JFK: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.8% of the time and Saturday flights 88.7%, against 83.8% 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 65 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
83.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,492 completed flights
Avg delay
73 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.71%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
83.8% on time across 1,570 flights
These figures cover 1,570 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 11 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to JFK
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,570 | 83.8% | 73 min | 4.71% | B− |
Flight by flight
Flights on CMH to JFK
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Columbus to New York
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. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CMH → JFKColumbus to New York | Republic Airways | 79.9% | 83.8% | 4.71% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 4808 09:03 |
| 2. CMH → EWRColumbus to Newark | Republic Airways | 79.6% | 83.1% | 4.23% | 5am–8am, Fri (route) | YX 3458 06:00 |
| 3. CMH → LGAColumbus to New York | Republic Airways | 75.7% | 79.6% | 4.96% | 5am–8am, Sat | YX 5700 06:00 |
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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am572 flights88.1%
- 8am–11am149 flights91.8%
- 11am–2pm524 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm9 flights—
- 5pm–8pm316 flights77.0%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 91.8% of the time, against 77.0% for the evening window. That is 15 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 572 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CMH to JFK 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 JFK, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 91.8% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 77.0%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am88.1%
- 8–11am91.8%
- 11am–2pm80.5%
- 2–5pm—
- 5–8pm77.0%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 69.0% on time, against 94.6% in May. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 155 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Thursday the weakest at 79.4%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 17,000 reported delay minutes.
- 41%National Airspace System
- 34%Carrier
- 18%Late-arriving aircraft
- 6%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,993 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,463 reported delay minutes.
41% 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 7,198 minutes out of 17,000, against a national NAS share of 21%.
Cancellations run at 4.71%, against 1.89% nationally. That is about one flight in twenty 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
6.4% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 483 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 77.7% on time across 1,569 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,570 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 JFK after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.71% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,492 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to JFK questions
How often is CMH to JFK 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 16.2% of the 1,570 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is CMH to JFK compared with the rest of the country?
83.8% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 7 points in its favour. That is worth a B− on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CMH to JFK?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 91.8% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 77.0%, 15 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 JFK?
December is the weakest month at 69.0% on time, compared with 94.6% in May. Across the year that is 26 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
- JFK to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- John F. Kennedy International (JFK) delay statistics
- CMH to ORD, a related route75.4%
- LAX to JFK, a related route77.5%
- CMH to ATL, a related route84.8%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.8%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CMH to JFK and JFK 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.