Carrier route record
DLMSP→CMH
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Columbus
- Flights
- 676
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 78%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to CMH lands a B+, 2 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 676 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate Delta on MSP to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 669 completed flights
Avg delay
70 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.89%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
80.2%
Every carrier on MSP to CMH, 871 flights
These figures cover 676 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MSP to CMH
Delta flew 676 of the 871 flights on MSP to CMH, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 80.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 81.9% to Delta at 79.7%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 (this page) | 676 | 79.7% | 70 min | 0.89% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to CMH
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Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 17 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am187 flights89.7%
- 8am–11am97 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm11 flights—
- 2pm–5pm95 flights72.3%
- 5pm–8pm34 flights79.4%
- 8pm–5am252 flights73.5%
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 89.7% of the time, against 72.3% for the afternoon window. That is 17 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 252 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to CMH through the year
May is the best month on the calendar at 88.7% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 113 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 85.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late Delta on MSP to CMH runs when it is late
Delta on MSP to CMH often beats the schedule: 205 of 669 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 136 late arrivals split 29 under half an hour, 48 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 59 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early205 flights30.6%
- Within 15 min328 flights49.0%
- 15–29 min late29 flights4.3%
- 30–59 min late48 flights7.2%
- 1–2 hours late43 flights6.4%
- 2+ hours late16 flights2.4%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 669 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
21 of 136 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 21 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for Delta on MSP to CMH
The latest arrival of the period was on 4 September 2025, 9 hours 5 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 4 September 2025 | 9 hours 5 minutes | Carrier |
| 23 May 2026 | 5 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 12 June 2026 | 4 hours 54 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 18 September 2025 | 3 hours 55 minutes | Carrier |
| 20 July 2026 | 3 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 61% of the 9,572 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 61%Carrier
- 24%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 61%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 5,810 of the 9,572 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 9,572 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.89%, 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 costs
8.8% 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 85.9% on time across 676 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 676 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 Delta on MSP to CMH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 676 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 79.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 669 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- MSP to CMH, every carrier
- Delta on CMH to MSP, the return leg
- SkyWest Airlines on MSP to CMH81.9%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Minneapolis-St Paul International (MSP) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
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.