Route reliability record
ORD→CMH
Chicago to Columbus
- Flights
- 4,794
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 6
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.4%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 4,794 flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,472 at 75.8% on time.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the four carriers covered here at 75.8% on time across 1,472 flights.
Key figures
On time
72.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,679 completed flights
Avg delay
74 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.32%
National rate is 1.80%
Best carrier
Republic
75.8% on time across 1,472 flights
These figures cover 4,794 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.8% 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
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 75.8% of the time; SkyWest Airlines manages 64.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 541 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,472 | 75.8% | 80 min | 2.79% | B |
| Envoy Air | 1,391 | 73.4% | 70 min | 1.73% | C |
| United Airlines | 1,209 | 70.5% | 68 min | 1.32% | C |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 54 | 67.3% | 77 min | 3.70% | C− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 541 | 64.5% | 83 min | 4.81% | D− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 127 | 61.6% | 86 min | 1.57% | 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.
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 25 points, against 11 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am507 flights86.5%
- 8am–11am513 flights82.0%
- 11am–2pm808 flights75.9%
- 2pm–5pm1,086 flights71.6%
- 5pm–8pm1,293 flights64.8%
- 8pm–5am587 flights61.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 61.5% on time, against 86.5% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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.
July is the worst month at 58.1% on time, 22 points below May, the best at 80.6%. 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.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 76.9% on time and Monday the weakest at 69.7%. 7 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 44% of the 97,000 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.
- 44%Late-arriving aircraft
- 25%Carrier
- 17%National Airspace System
- 14%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure.
44% 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 97,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 3 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.
Cancellations sit at 2.32% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 11.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.2% 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.
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 73.7% on time across 4,791 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 4,794 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.
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 July 58.1%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else.
Common questions
ORD to CMH questions
How often is ORD to CMH delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 28.0% of the 4,794 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% 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 75.8% on time across 1,472 flights. SkyWest Airlines is at the other end on 64.5%, a gap of 11 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 86.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 61.5%, 25 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 July delays on ORD to CMH?
July is the weakest month at 58.1% on time, compared with 80.6% in May. Across the year that is 22 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-time record75.8%
- Envoy Air on-time record73.4%
- United Airlines on-time record70.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
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.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.