Route reliability record
DTW→CMH
Detroit to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,505
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 155 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 5 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in six arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,505 DTW to CMH flights, of which Republic Airways flew 914 at 86.0% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to CMH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.5% of the time and Saturday flights 88.7%, against 82.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 5 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 48 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
82.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,492 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.86%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
86.0% on time across 914 flights
These figures cover 1,505 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 86.0% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 76.0%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 587 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 914 | 86.0% | 79 min | 0.44% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 587 | 76.0% | 111 min | 1.53% | B |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 38 min | 0.00% | B+ |
Republic leads SkyWest by 10 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Columbus
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → CMHDetroit to Columbus | Republic Airways | 85.6% | 86.0% | 0.44% | 11am–2pm, Thu | YX 5838 19:59 |
| 2. DTW → CMHDetroit to Columbus | SkyWest Airlines | 74.8% | 76.0% | 1.53% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,505 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am402 flights87.5%
- 11am–2pm226 flights81.7%
- 2pm–5pm243 flights77.7%
- 5pm–8pm106 flights81.1%
- 8pm–5am528 flights80.4%
Scale runs 70% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.5% of the time, against 77.7% for the afternoon window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 528 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW 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 DTW to CMH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 87.5% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 77.7%, a real gap of 9.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am87.5%
- 11am–2pm81.7%
- 2–5pm77.7%
- 5–8pm81.1%
- 8pm–5am80.4%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 67.6% on time, against 93.6% 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. August was the busiest month here, with 180 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 77.5%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 67% of the 26,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Carrier
- 14%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 26,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 25,501 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.86%, 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 actually costs
8.2% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 155 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 85.6% on time across 1,508 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,505 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 93.6% on time and December 67.6%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,492 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to CMH questions
How often is DTW to CMH delayed?
About one flight in six arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 17.9% of the 1,505 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to CMH?
Republic Airways leads at 86.0% on time across 914 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 76.0%, 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 DTW to CMH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 77.7%, 10 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 DTW to CMH?
December is the weakest month at 67.6% on time, compared with 93.6% in September. Across the year that is 26 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 DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to CMH86.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to CMH76.0%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record86.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record76.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.0%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to CMH and CMH to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DTW to CMH’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.