Carrier route record

AACMH→PHL

American Airlines · Columbus to Philadelphia

Flights: 490
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 36%
Carriers: 3

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

American on CMH to PHL sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 490 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on CMH to PHL runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 51 extra late arrivals.

On time

72.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 472 completed flights

Avg delay

94 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.47%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.6%

Every carrier on CMH to PHL, 1,378 flights

These figures cover 490 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.9% 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

American against every carrier on CMH to PHL

American flew 490 of the 1,378 flights on CMH to PHL, about 36% of it. Its 72.5% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.0% to American at 72.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

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 PHL
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 (this page)	490	72.5%	94 min	3.47%	C−

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 45 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–8am133 flights93.0%
8am–11am8 flights—
11am–2pm132 flights78.6%
2pm–5pm143 flights58.5%
5pm–8pm74 flights47.9%
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 40% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.9% on time, against 93.0% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 143 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on CMH to PHL through the year

Jul–Sep 2025260 flights65.0%
Oct–Dec 2025111 flights78.0%
Apr–Jun 2026119 flights82.9%

Scale runs 55% 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 72.5% on time across 490 flights.

American on CMH to PHL did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Apr–Jun 2026 at 82.9% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2025 at 65.0%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 163 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, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.4% on time and Thursday the weakest at 61.6%. 23 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 44% of the 12,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
44%
Carrier
31%
National Airspace System
22%
Extreme weather
3%

44% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 16 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 12,262 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 93.0% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.47%, 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.9% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.

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 71.9% on time across 489 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 490 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 American on CMH to PHL

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.47% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; 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. 472 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