Route reliability record
LAS→CMH
Las Vegas to Columbus
- Flights
- 909
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,771 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C+. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land about 55 minutes behind schedule. That rests on 909 LAS to CMH flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
Best time to fly LAS to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.8% of the time and Tuesday flights 82.8%, against 74.9% 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
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 901 completed flights
Avg delay
55 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.66%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Southwest
74.7% on time across 838 flights
These figures cover 909 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 2 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
Which airline is most reliable on LAS 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 71 | 77.5% | 81 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 838 | 74.7% | 53 min | 0.72% | C+ |
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 30 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am153 flights86.8%
- 8am–11am215 flights85.4%
- 11am–2pm83 flights57.3%
- 2pm–5pm220 flights76.7%
- 5pm–8pm238 flights62.1%
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 90%. 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 57.3% on time against 86.8% 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 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 238 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 17 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 64.2% on time, 17 points below December, the best at 81.2%. 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. October was the busiest month here, with 109 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 82.8% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.7%. 13 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 53% of the 12,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 35%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
53% 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 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 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 12,406 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 35%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 4,283 of the 12,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.66%, 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 actually costs
7.1% 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 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 1,771 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.2% on time across 911 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 909 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CMH after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 909 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 74.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 901 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LAS to CMH questions
How often is LAS to CMH delayed?
About 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 25.1% of the 909 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is LAS to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
74.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LAS to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.8% on time. The 11am–2pm window is the weakest at 57.3%, 30 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 LAS to CMH?
June is the weakest month at 64.2% on time, compared with 81.2% in December. Across the year that is 17 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 LAS — the return legseparate record
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- LAS to LAX, a related route78.8%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.1%
- LAS to DEN, a related route77.0%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record77.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record74.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. LAS to CMH and CMH to LAS 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.