Carrier route record
WNCMH→PHX
Southwest Airlines · Columbus to Phoenix
- Flights
- 556
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 48%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 556 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
80.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 549 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.08%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
82.4%
Every carrier on CMH to PHX, 1,169 flights
These figures cover 556 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 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
Southwest against every carrier on CMH to PHX
Southwest flew 556 of the 1,169 flights on CMH to PHX, about 48% of it. Its 80.3% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 82.4%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last 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 | 613 | 84.4% | 166 min | 1.47% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page) | 556 | 80.3% | 57 min | 1.08% | B |
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 39 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–8am240 flights97.0%
- 8am–11am41 flights92.7%
- 11am–2pm29 flights—
- 2pm–5pm61 flights58.3%
- 5pm–8pm170 flights65.5%
- 8pm–5am15 flights—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 97.0% of the time, against 58.3% for the afternoon window. That is 39 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 240 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 93.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 72.2%. 22 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 49% of the 6,203 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.
- 49%Late-arriving aircraft
- 32%Carrier
- 18%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
49% 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 6,203 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 49 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 6,203 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 97.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.08% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.18%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.7% land an hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% 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 66.3% on time across 556 flights, 14 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 14 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 556 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. 556 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 80.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 549 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 PHX84.4%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
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.