Carrier route record
AACMH→PHX
American Airlines · Columbus to Phoenix
- Flights
- 613
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CMH to PHX earns a B. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 7 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.8 hours. That rests on 613 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's CMH to PHX record is 7 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 68 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
84.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 601 completed flights
Avg delay
166 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.4%
Every carrier on CMH to PHX, 1,169 flights
These figures cover 613 flights between July 2025 and June 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.
Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CMH to PHX
American flew 613 of the 1,169 flights on CMH to PHX, most of the route. Its 84.4% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 84.4% to Southwest at 80.3%.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 613 | 84.4% | 166 min | 1.47% | B |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 80.3% | 57 min | 1.08% | B |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CMH to PHX
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 613 flights.
- 5am–8am239 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am126 flights87.7%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm242 flights80.8%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 87.7% on time for the 8am–11am window against 80.8% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 242 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on CMH to PHX through the year
December is the weak month at 68.6% on time, against 92.7% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.
Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 87.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 80.0%. 8 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. Carrier accounts for 71% of the 16,000 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.
- 71%Carrier
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 71%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 11,000 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 15,562 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.47% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.0% 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 about 2.8 hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,670 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 79.4% on time across 612 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 613 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 PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 613 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 84.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 601 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to PHX, every carrier
- American on PHX to CMH, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on CMH to PHX80.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
- How to read this site: grades, sample sizes, and honest caveats
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.