Carrier route record
DLMSP→CMH
Delta Air Lines · Minneapolis to Columbus
- Flights
- 657
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 77%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on MSP to CMH lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 657 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 650 completed flights
Avg delay
69 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.91%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
77.6%
Every carrier on MSP to CMH, 854 flights
These figures cover 657 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on MSP to CMH
Delta flew 657 of the 854 flights on MSP to CMH, most of the route. Its 76.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 77.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 81.5% to Delta at 76.5%. 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 | 197 | 81.5% | 108 min | 0.51% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 657 | 76.5% | 69 min | 0.91% | B+ |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on MSP to CMH
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 14 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–8am186 flights84.8%
- 8am–11am79 flights83.3%
- 11am–2pm17 flights—
- 2pm–5pm89 flights70.8%
- 5pm–8pm9 flights—
- 8pm–5am277 flights71.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 70.8% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 277 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on MSP to CMH through the year
July is the worst month at 66.4% on time, 22 points below May, the best at 88.7%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 115 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.4%. 7 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 59% of the 11,000 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.
- 59%Carrier
- 25%Late-arriving aircraft
- 12%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 59%, 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 6,219 of the 11,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 10,582 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 0.91% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.15%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.4% on time across 656 flights, 8 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 8 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 657 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. 657 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 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 650 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 CMH81.5%
- 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 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.