Route reliability record
ORD→CMH
Chicago to Columbus
- Flights
- 4,990
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 6
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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,990 ORD to CMH flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,617 at 75.6% on time.
Best time to fly ORD to CMH: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.2%, against 73.5% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.6% on time across 1,617 flights.
Key figures
On time
73.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,846 completed flights
Avg delay
75 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.77%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
75.6% on time across 1,617 flights
These figures cover 4,990 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% 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 ORD to CMH
The four carriers here are closely matched: 4 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,617 | 75.6% | 81 min | 3.40% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 1,409 | 74.3% | 71 min | 2.20% | C |
| SkyWest Airlines | 584 | 72.3% | 74 min | 4.79% | C− |
| United Airlines | 1,222 | 71.9% | 71 min | 1.72% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 54 | 67.3% | 77 min | 3.70% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 104 | 63.1% | 86 min | 0.96% | D+ |
SkyWest Airlines cancels 4.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD 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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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Chicago to Columbus
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 1 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. MDW → CMHChicago to Columbus | Southwest Airlines | 79.5% | 80.9% | 1.78% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 2. ORD → CMHChicago to Columbus | Republic Airways | 73.0% | 75.6% | 3.40% | 11am–2pm, Tue | YX 3614 21:10 |
| 3. ORD → CMHChicago to Columbus | Envoy Air | 72.7% | 74.3% | 2.20% | 5am–8am, Tue | MQ 3447 20:59 |
| 4. ORD → CMHChicago to Columbus | United Airlines | 70.7% | 71.9% | 1.72% | 5am–8am, Tue | UA 1492 21:30 |
| 5. ORD → CMHChicago to Columbus | SkyWest Airlines | 68.8% | 72.3% | 4.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 22 points, against 4 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am554 flights87.6%
- 8am–11am540 flights79.3%
- 11am–2pm824 flights78.4%
- 2pm–5pm1,155 flights72.9%
- 5pm–8pm1,282 flights65.6%
- 8pm–5am635 flights66.6%
Scale runs 55% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.6% of the time, against 65.6% for the evening window. That is 22 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,282 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD 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 ORD to CMH, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 87.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 65.6%, a wide gap of 22.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am87.6%
- 8–11am79.3%
- 11am–2pm78.4%
- 2–5pm72.9%
- 5–8pm65.6%
- 8pm–5am66.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
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.
December is the weak month at 62.1% on time, against 80.6% 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 488 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.2% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 96,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 23%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 12%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 12% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 95,725 reported delay minutes.
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 96,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations run at 2.77%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in 40 cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 296 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 75.4% on time across 4,988 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 4,990 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. May runs 80.6% on time and December 62.1%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 4,846 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to CMH questions
How often is ORD 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 26.5% of the 4,990 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CMH?
Republic Airways leads at 75.6% on time across 1,617 flights. United Airlines is at the other end on 71.9%, a gap of 4 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 ORD to CMH?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 65.6%, 22 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 ORD to CMH?
December is the weakest month at 62.1% on time, compared with 80.6% 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 ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to CMH75.6%
- Envoy Air on ORD to CMH74.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to CMH72.3%
- United Airlines on ORD to CMH71.9%
- American Airlines on ORD to CMH63.1%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- ATL to CMH, a related route80.0%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- Republic Airways on-time record75.6%
- Envoy Air on-time record74.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.3%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. ORD to CMH and CMH to ORD 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.