Route reliability record
DCA→CMH
Washington to Columbus
- Flights
- 2,056
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 323 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 2,056 DCA to CMH flights, of which Republic Airways flew 970 at 80.7% on time.
Best time to fly DCA to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 77.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,985 completed flights
Avg delay
72 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.31%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
80.7% on time across 970 flights
These figures cover 2,056 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% 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
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 80.7% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 71.2%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 419 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 970 | 80.7% | 66 min | 2.68% | B |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 351 | 80.4% | 68 min | 0.28% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 316 | 74.5% | 95 min | 5.70% | C− |
| PSA Airlines | 419 | 71.2% | 68 min | 5.49% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.5% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DCA to CMH
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Washington to Columbus
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 3 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. IAD → CMHWashington to Columbus | United Airlines | 84.8% | 85.0% | 0.26% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 2. IAD → CMHWashington to Columbus | Republic Airways | 78.7% | 80.4% | 2.08% | 8am–11am, Sat | YX 3646 22:10 |
| 3. DCA → CMHWashington to Columbus | Republic Airways | 78.5% | 80.7% | 2.68% | 5am–8am, Tue | YX 4700 10:00 |
| 4. BWI → CMHBaltimore to Columbus | Southwest Airlines | 77.3% | 78.9% | 2.08% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 5. DCA → CMHWashington to Columbus | PSA Airlines | 67.3% | 71.2% | 5.49% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 21 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am199 flights90.7%
- 8am–11am527 flights85.1%
- 11am–2pm453 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm301 flights69.4%
- 5pm–8pm411 flights71.6%
- 8pm–5am165 flights77.5%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.7% of the time, against 69.4% for the afternoon window. That is 21 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 527 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 65.7% on time, against 88.8% in September. 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 182 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 73.6%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 31,000 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.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 17%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 1.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 31,444 reported delay minutes.
59% 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 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 5 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.
Cancellations run at 3.31%, 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 actually costs
8.4% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 323 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 69.3% on time across 2,055 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.
The sample behind these figures is 2,056 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CMH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.31% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; 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. 1,985 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DCA to CMH questions
How often is DCA to CMH delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.2% of the 2,056 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DCA to CMH?
Republic Airways leads at 80.7% on time across 970 flights. PSA Airlines is at the other end on 71.2%, a gap of 10 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DCA to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 69.4%, 21 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on DCA to CMH?
December is the weakest month at 65.7% on time, compared with 88.8% in September. Across the year that is 23 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CMH to DCA — the return legseparate record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DCA to CMH80.7%
- Southwest Airlines on DCA to CMH80.4%
- Envoy Air on DCA to CMH74.5%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CMH71.2%
- DCA to BOS, a related route71.4%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.1%
- DCA to ORD, a related route74.3%
- Republic Airways on-time record80.7%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record80.4%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.5%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. DCA to CMH and CMH to DCA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.