Carrier route record

WNDCA→CMH

Southwest Airlines · Washington to Columbus

Flights: 351
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 17%
Carriers: 4

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Southwest Airlines.

Southwest on DCA to CMH 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 351 flights. The strongest carrier on the route with a full sample, Republic Airways, flew 970 at 80.7% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

80.4%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 347 completed flights

Avg delay

68 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

0.28%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

77.8%

Every carrier on DCA to CMH, 2,056 flights

These figures cover 351 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 DCA to CMH

Southwest flew 351 of the 2,056 flights on DCA to CMH, about 17% of it. Its 80.4% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 77.8%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 80.7% to PSA at 71.2%. 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 80.7% 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.

On-time performance by carrier on DCA to CMH
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Republic Airways	970	80.7%	66 min	2.68%	B
Southwest Airlines (this page)thin 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.

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 19 points, against 10 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am36 flights94.4%
8am–11am49 flights91.7%
11am–2pm211 flights75.2%
2pm–5pm55 flights81.1%
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 75.2% 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 211 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

Southwest on DCA to CMH through the year

Jul–Sep 202592 flights84.6%
Oct–Dec 202583 flights72.0%
Jan–Mar 202685 flights83.3%
Apr–Jun 202691 flights81.1%

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 80.4% on time across 351 flights.

Southwest on DCA to CMH did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 84.6% on time and its weakest Oct–Dec 2025 at 72.0%, a swing of 13 points on roughly 88 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 90.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 61.5%. 29 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 56% of the 4,605 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
56%
Carrier
25%
Extreme weather
10%
National Airspace System
9%

56% 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 4,605 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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 4,605 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 0.28%, below the national 1.81% 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

6.3% 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 about 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 60.2% on time across 351 flights, 20 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 20 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 351 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. 351 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 80.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 347 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures