Carrier route record
AACMH→PHX
American Airlines · Columbus to Phoenix
- Flights
- 610
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 53%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on CMH to PHX earns an A. More than four flights in five arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 8 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs about 2.7 hours. That rests on 610 flights, with a median arrival 12 minutes early.
Set against the rest of the country, American's CMH to PHX record is 8 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 77 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
85.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 599 completed flights
Avg delay
160 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.48%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.7%
Every carrier on CMH to PHX, 1,141 flights
These figures cover 610 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 12 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.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on CMH to PHX
American flew 610 of the 1,141 flights on CMH to PHX, most of the route. Its 85.0% on time is 2 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 85.0% to Southwest at 80.2%.
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) | 610 | 85.0% | 160 min | 1.48% | A |
| Southwest Airlines | 531 | 80.2% | 49 min | 1.13% | B |
Flight by flight
American flight numbers on CMH to PHX
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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 610 flights.
- 5am–8am266 flights87.3%
- 8am–11am100 flights87.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm3 flights—
- 5pm–8pm238 flights81.8%
- 8pm–5am3 flights—
Scale runs 75% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 87.6% on time for the 8am–11am window against 81.8% for 5pm–8pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 266 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 89.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 81.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on CMH to PHX runs when it is late
American on CMH to PHX often beats the schedule: 268 of 599 completed flights, 45%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 90 late arrivals split 28 under half an hour, 23 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 39 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early268 flights44.7%
- Within 15 min241 flights40.2%
- 15–29 min late28 flights4.7%
- 30–59 min late23 flights3.8%
- 1–2 hours late15 flights2.5%
- 2+ hours late24 flights4.0%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 599 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
25 of 97 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 26% of them. 18 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on CMH to PHX
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 December 2025, 35 hours 33 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on five of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 December 2025 | 35 hours 33 minutes | Carrier |
| 6 October 2025 | 31 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 26 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 21 January 2026 | 16 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 September 2025 | 10 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 10,000 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 14,387 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.48% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.33%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
6.5% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about 2.7 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 76.5% on time across 609 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 610 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. 610 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 85.0% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 599 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 PHX80.2%
- 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
- The best day of the week to fly, and why it is the second lever
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.