Route reliability record
CMH→PHL
Columbus to Philadelphia
- Flights
- 1,378
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 407 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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 a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,378 CMH to PHL flights, of which Republic Airways flew 542 at 87.0% on time.
Best time to fly CMH to PHL: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 91.6% of the time and Saturday flights 87.1%, against 79.6% 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,330 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.19%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
87.0% on time across 542 flights
These figures cover 1,378 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to PHL
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 87.0% of the time; American Airlines manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 490 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 542 | 87.0% | 58 min | 1.48% | A |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 346 | 77.9% | 71 min | 5.49% | B− |
| American Airlines | 490 | 72.5% | 94 min | 3.47% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.5% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Columbus to Philadelphia
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CMH → PHLColumbus to Philadelphia | Republic Airways | 85.7% | 87.0% | 1.48% | 5am–8am, Sat | — |
| 2. CMH → PHLColumbus to Philadelphia | American Airlines | 70.0% | 72.5% | 3.47% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 28 points, against 15 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am283 flights91.6%
- 8am–11am281 flights86.9%
- 11am–2pm338 flights82.0%
- 2pm–5pm218 flights63.2%
- 5pm–8pm258 flights68.4%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 91.6% of the time, against 63.2% for the afternoon window. That is 28 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 338 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 38 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.
July is the worst month at 53.4% on time, 38 points below April, the best at 91.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 169 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 87.1% on time and Thursday the weakest at 75.0%. 12 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 47% of the 21,000 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.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 27%Carrier
- 23%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
47% 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 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 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 21,362 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 91.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.19%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
8.0% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 407 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 79.2% on time across 1,382 flights, within half a point 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 1,378 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 PHL after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.19% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,330 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CMH to PHL questions
How often is CMH to PHL 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 20.4% of the 1,378 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CMH to PHL?
Republic Airways leads at 87.0% on time across 542 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 15 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 PHL?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 91.6% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 63.2%, 28 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 July delays on CMH to PHL?
July is the weakest month at 53.4% on time, compared with 91.3% in April. Across the year that is 38 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
- PHL to CMH — the return legseparate record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on CMH to PHL87.0%
- PSA Airlines on CMH to PHL77.9%
- American Airlines on CMH to PHL72.5%
- CMH to ORD, a related route74.5%
- ATL to PHL, a related route74.9%
- CMH to ATL, a related route85.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.0%
- PSA Airlines on-time record77.9%
- American Airlines on-time record72.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. CMH to PHL and PHL 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.