Route reliability record
CMH→LAS
Columbus to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 911
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,771 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 911 CMH to LAS flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly CMH to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.8% of the time and Wednesday flights 87.8%, against 79.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 905 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.44%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
79.2% on time across 839 flights
These figures cover 911 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 4 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
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to LAS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Airlines | 839 | 79.2% | 58 min | 0.48% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 72 | 79.2% | 48 min | 0.00% | B+ |
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 48 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–8am333 flights94.8%
- 8am–11am30 flights93.3%
- 11am–2pm140 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm170 flights76.9%
- 5pm–8pm202 flights63.9%
- 8pm–5am36 flights47.2%
Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 47.2% on time, against 94.8% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 333 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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 71.9% on time, against 92.7% in January. 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 110 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 87.8% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.0%. 15 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. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 51% of the 11,000 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.
- 51%Late-arriving aircraft
- 31%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
51% 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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 30 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 10,679 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 94.8% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.44%, 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 actually costs
6.2% 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 about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,771 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 74.9% on time across 909 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 911 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAS after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 911 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 79.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 905 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to LAS questions
How often is CMH to LAS delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 911 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CMH to LAS compared with the rest of the country?
79.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 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 LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 94.8% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 47.2%, 48 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 LAS?
December is the weakest month at 71.9% on time, compared with 92.7% in January. Across the year that is 21 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
- LAS to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- CMH to ORD, a related route74.5%
- LAX to LAS, a related route76.5%
- CMH to ATL, a related route85.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CMH to LAS and LAS 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.