Carrier route record
WNDCA→CMH
Southwest Airlines · Washington to Columbus
- Flights
- 349
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 17%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.
Southwest on DCA to CMH lands a B+, level with the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 349 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 989 at 80.1% on time.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Southwest on DCA to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
77.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 345 completed flights
Avg delay
54 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.57%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on DCA to CMH, 2,051 flights
These figures cover 349 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 DCA to CMH
Southwest flew 349 of the 2,051 flights on DCA to CMH, about 17% of it. Its 77.1% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.1% to PSA at 73.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 80.1% of the time; PSA Airlines manages 73.7%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 455 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 989 | 80.1% | 65 min | 2.63% | B |
| Southwest Airlines (this page)thin sample | 349 | 77.1% | 54 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 258 | 75.3% | 103 min | 4.26% | B− |
| PSA Airlines | 455 | 73.7% | 82 min | 8.79% | C− |
PSA Airlines cancels 8.8% 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.
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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 21 points, against 6 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am36 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am45 flights90.9%
- 11am–2pm240 flights73.9%
- 2pm–5pm28 flights—
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 65% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 73.9% on time against 94.4% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 240 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Southwest on DCA to CMH through the year
- Jul–Sep 202530 flights93.3%
- Oct–Dec 202583 flights72.0%
- Jan–Mar 202685 flights83.3%
- Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.1%
- Jul–Sep 202660 flights61.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%.
Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 77.1% on time across 349 flights.
Southwest on DCA to CMH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 93.3% on time and its weakest Jul–Sep 2026 at 61.0%, a swing of 32 points on roughly 70 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 92.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 58.8%, a spread of 34 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Southwest on DCA to CMH runs when it is late
Most of the lateness is short. 41 of the 79 late arrivals were under half an hour behind, and 16 reached an hour or more.
- 15+ min early84 flights24.3%
- Within 15 min182 flights52.8%
- 15–29 min late41 flights11.9%
- 30–59 min late22 flights6.4%
- 1–2 hours late8 flights2.3%
- 2+ hours late8 flights2.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 345 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
18 of 91 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 20% of them. Only 6 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Southwest on DCA to CMH
The latest arrival of the period was on 27 December 2025, 5 hours 38 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The five worst days are spread across December, April, October and August, with no single month standing out.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 27 December 2025 | 5 hours 38 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 14 December 2025 | 5 hours 13 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 April 2026 | 4 hours 35 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 8 October 2025 | 3 hours 31 minutes | Carrier |
| 2 August 2026 | 3 hours | National Airspace System |
Delay causes
Why Southwest runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 52% of the 4,255 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 52%Late-arriving aircraft
- 34%Carrier
- 13%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
52% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 4,255 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 52 to one. The split is drawn from 4,255 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.57%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
Badly late arrivals are rare here: only 4.6% 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 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 57.9% on time across 350 flights, 19 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 19 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 349 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 DCA to CMH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 349 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 77.1% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 345 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to CMH, every carrier
- Southwest on CMH to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to CMH80.1%
- Envoy Air on DCA to CMH75.3%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to CMH73.7%
- Southwest Airlines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) 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.