Route reliability record
MSP→CMH
Minneapolis to Columbus
- Flights
- 871
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 626 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B+, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 871 MSP to CMH flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly MSP to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 88.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 87.3%, against 80.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
80.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 862 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.80%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
79.7% on time across 676 flights
These figures cover 871 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.9% 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 MSP 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 195 | 81.9% | 110 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 676 | 79.7% | 70 min | 0.89% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on MSP 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 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am236 flights88.4%
- 8am–11am125 flights87.2%
- 11am–2pm15 flights—
- 2pm–5pm173 flights75.4%
- 5pm–8pm34 flights79.4%
- 8pm–5am288 flights73.6%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 88.4% of the time, against 73.6% for the overnight window. That is 15 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 288 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter MSP 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 MSP to CMH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 88.4% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 73.6%, a wide gap of 14.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am88.4%
- 8–11am87.2%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm75.4%
- 5–8pm79.4%
- 8pm–5am73.6%
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 18 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.
February is the weak month at 71.4% on time, against 89.3% in May. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 87.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 74.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 65% of the 13,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 65%Carrier
- 17%Late-arriving aircraft
- 11%National Airspace System
- 7%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 65%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 8,722 of the 13,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,417 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.80%, 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
8.9% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 626 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 85.2% on time across 871 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 871 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. 871 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 80.2% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 862 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
MSP to CMH questions
How often is MSP to CMH delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 19.8% of the 871 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
How reliable is MSP to CMH compared with the rest of the country?
80.2% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B+ on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on MSP to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.4% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 73.6%, 15 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 February delays on MSP to CMH?
February is the weakest month at 71.4% on time, compared with 89.3% in May. Across the year that is 18 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 MSP — the return legseparate record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to CMH81.9%
- Delta Air Lines on MSP to CMH79.7%
- MSP to ORD, a related route70.0%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- MSP to DEN, a related route77.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record81.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record79.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. MSP to CMH and CMH to MSP 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.