Route reliability record
DFW→CMH
Dallas-Fort Worth to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,727
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 926 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,727 DFW to CMH flights, with a median arrival 3 minutes early.
Best time to fly DFW to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Tuesday flights 76.3%, against 71.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
71.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,689 completed flights
Avg delay
67 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.97%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
70.4% on time across 1,414 flights
These figures cover 1,727 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DFW to CMH
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Envoy Airthin sample | 310 | 76.7% | 59 min | 0.32% | B+ |
| American Airlines | 1,414 | 70.4% | 68 min | 2.33% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 50.0% | 22 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DFW 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.
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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 28 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am321 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am167 flights74.2%
- 11am–2pm299 flights78.0%
- 2pm–5pm361 flights64.5%
- 5pm–8pm365 flights68.6%
- 8pm–5am214 flights57.3%
Scale runs 50% to 90%.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 57.3% on time, against 84.9% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DFW to CMH by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DFW to CMH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.9% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 57.3%, a wide gap of 27.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.9%
- 8–11am74.2%
- 11am–2pm78.0%
- 2–5pm64.5%
- 5–8pm68.6%
- 8pm–5am57.3%
best all US flightsScale 50% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 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.
June is the worst month at 60.1% on time, 21 points below September, the best at 81.6%. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 158 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 64.1%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 50% of the 32,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 50%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 8%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
50% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 32,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 to one. The split is drawn from 32,015 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 84.9% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 926 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.0% on time across 1,727 flights, 9 points above 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 1,727 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 calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 81.6% on time and June 60.1%, a swing of 21 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 1,689 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DFW to CMH questions
How often is DFW to CMH delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.4% of the 1,727 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is DFW to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
71.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 6 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DFW to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 57.3%, 28 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 June delays on DFW to CMH?
June is the weakest month at 60.1% on time, compared with 81.6% in September. Across the year that is 21 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 DFW — the return legseparate record
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Envoy Air on DFW to CMH76.7%
- American Airlines on DFW to CMH70.4%
- DFW to ORD, a related route68.8%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- DFW to ATL, a related route75.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record100.0%
- Envoy Air on-time record76.7%
- American Airlines on-time record70.4%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DFW to CMH and CMH to DFW 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.