Route reliability record
CMH→ORD
Columbus to Chicago
- Flights
- 4,988
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 4,988 CMH to ORD flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,626 at 83.6% on time.
Best time to fly CMH to ORD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Wednesday flights 79.1%, against 75.4% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 83.6% on time across 1,626 flights.
Key figures
On time
75.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,848 completed flights
Avg delay
95 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.73%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
83.6% on time across 1,626 flights
These figures cover 4,988 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 ORD
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 83.6% of the time; United Airlines manages 67.1%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,222 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 106 | 83.7% | 94 min | 1.89% | B |
| Republic Airways | 1,626 | 83.6% | 66 min | 2.71% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,396 | 75.3% | 105 min | 2.22% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 54 | 69.8% | 75 min | 1.85% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 584 | 69.1% | 127 min | 5.48% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,222 | 67.1% | 92 min | 2.13% | C |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 5.5% 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.
Flight by flight
Flights on CMH to ORD
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 Chicago
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. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CMH → ORDColumbus to Chicago | Republic Airways | 81.3% | 83.6% | 2.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | YX 3524 05:30 |
| 2. CMH → MDWColumbus to Chicago | Southwest Airlines | 78.4% | 79.7% | 1.62% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. CMH → ORDColumbus to Chicago | Envoy Air | 73.6% | 75.3% | 2.22% | 5am–8am, Sat | MQ 3572 08:20 |
| 4. CMH → ORDColumbus to Chicago | United Airlines | 65.7% | 67.1% | 2.13% | 11am–2pm, Wed | — |
| 5. CMH → ORDColumbus to Chicago | SkyWest Airlines | 65.3% | 69.1% | 5.48% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
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 17 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am1,240 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am1,163 flights79.5%
- 11am–2pm550 flights80.1%
- 2pm–5pm1,121 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm591 flights54.3%
- 8pm–5am323 flights63.4%
Scale runs 45% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.3% on time, against 84.9% 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 1,240 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CMH to ORD 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 ORD, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.3%, a wide gap of 30.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.9%
- 8–11am79.5%
- 11am–2pm80.1%
- 2–5pm72.3%
- 5–8pm54.3%
- 8pm–5am63.4%
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 25 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 58.6% on time, against 83.9% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 487 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.8%, 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 113,000 reported delay minutes.
- 40%National Airspace System
- 33%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 5%Extreme weather
40% 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 45,000 minutes out of 113,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 113,207 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations run at 2.73%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 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
10.0% 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 296 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 runs 73.5% on time across 4,990 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,988 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 ORD after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 83.9% on time and December 58.6%, a swing of 25 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,848 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to ORD questions
How often is CMH to ORD delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.6% of the 4,988 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to ORD?
Republic Airways leads at 83.6% on time across 1,626 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 67.1%, a gap of 17 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 ORD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.3%, 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 ORD?
December is the weakest month at 58.6% on time, compared with 83.9% in May. Across the year that is 25 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
- ORD to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- American Airlines on CMH to ORD83.7%
- Republic Airways on CMH to ORD83.6%
- Envoy Air on CMH to ORD75.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on CMH to ORD69.1%
- United Airlines on CMH to ORD67.1%
- CMH to ATL, a related route84.8%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- CMH to LGA, a related route79.2%
- American Airlines on-time record83.7%
- Republic Airways on-time record83.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. CMH to ORD and ORD 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.