Carrier route record
WNCMH→PHX
Southwest Airlines · Columbus to Phoenix
- Flights
- 531
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 47%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on CMH to PHX lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 50 minutes on average. That rests on 531 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on CMH to PHX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 524 completed flights
Avg delay
49 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.13%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
82.7%
Every carrier on CMH to PHX, 1,141 flights
These figures cover 531 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 5 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
Southwest against every carrier on CMH to PHX
Southwest flew 531 of the 1,141 flights on CMH to PHX, about 47% of it. Its 80.2% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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 | 610 | 85.0% | 160 min | 1.48% | A |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 531 | 80.2% | 49 min | 1.13% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When Southwest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 34 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am197 flights96.9%
- 8am–11am49 flights93.8%
- 11am–2pm32 flights71.9%
- 2pm–5pm89 flights62.5%
- 5pm–8pm154 flights66.7%
- 8pm–5am10 flights—
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 96.9% of the time, against 62.5% for the afternoon window. That is 34 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 197 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on CMH to PHX through the year
June is the worst month at 54.3% on time, 43 points below February, the best at 96.8%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 66 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 93.4% on time and Monday the weakest at 73.3%, a spread of 20 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on CMH to PHX runs when it is late
Southwest on CMH to PHX often beats the schedule: 156 of 524 completed flights, 30%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 104 late arrivals split 45 under half an hour, 38 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 21 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early156 flights29.8%
- Within 15 min264 flights50.4%
- 15–29 min late45 flights8.6%
- 30–59 min late38 flights7.3%
- 1–2 hours late13 flights2.5%
- 2+ hours late8 flights1.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 524 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
A late pushback is often recovered here: of 153 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, 65 still arrived on time. 16 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on CMH to PHX
The latest arrival of the period was on 17 February 2026, 5 hours 21 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). On three of the five worst days the largest share was filed as a late-arriving aircraft.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 17 February 2026 | 5 hours 21 minutes | Carrier |
| 26 December 2025 | 3 hours 18 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 10 November 2025 | 3 hours 5 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 19 June 2026 | 2 hours 31 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 26 April 2026 | 2 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 5,081 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 21%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
45% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 5,081 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 45 to one. The split is drawn from 5,081 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 34%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 1,742 of the 5,081 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.13% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.0% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Connections built on this flight are about as safe as US domestic connections get, though a cancelled flight still ignores every layover you give it.
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 63.9% on time across 531 flights, 16 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 16 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 531 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 Southwest on CMH to PHX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 531 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 80.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 524 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to PHX, every carrier
- Southwest on PHX to CMH, the return leg
- American Airlines on CMH to PHX85.0%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.