Route reliability record
PHL→CMH
Philadelphia to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,382
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 407 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 3.3% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.8% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, about four flights in five arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 1,382 PHL to CMH flights, of which Republic Airways flew 546 at 84.5% on time.
Best time to fly PHL to CMH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.5%, against 79.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,334 completed flights
Avg delay
79 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
3.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Republic
84.5% on time across 546 flights
These figures cover 1,382 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.1% 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 PHL to CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 84.5% of the time; American Airlines manages 71.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 489 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 546 | 84.5% | 77 min | 2.93% | B |
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 347 | 81.3% | 73 min | 4.03% | B− |
| American Airlines | 489 | 71.9% | 82 min | 3.07% | C− |
American Airlines cancels 3.1% 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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Philadelphia to Columbus
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. PHL → CMHPhiladelphia to Columbus | Republic Airways | 82.0% | 84.5% | 2.93% | 8am–11am, Tue | — |
| 2. PHL → CMHPhiladelphia to Columbus | American Airlines | 69.7% | 71.9% | 3.07% | 8am–11am, Fri | — |
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 13 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am385 flights87.1%
- 11am–2pm171 flights78.5%
- 2pm–5pm330 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm308 flights74.0%
- 8pm–5am188 flights78.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 74.0% for the evening window. That is 13 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 385 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 32 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 60.0% on time, 32 points below April, the best at 92.2%. 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. August was the busiest month here, with 169 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.5% on time and Thursday the weakest at 71.0%. 14 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 48% of the 22,000 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.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% 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 22,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 6 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. The split is drawn from 21,741 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 8am–11am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 87.1% on time here.
Cancellations run at 3.26%, against 1.81% nationally. That is about one flight in 30 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
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 9.1% 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.
At 407 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.6% on time across 1,378 flights, within half a point 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 1,382 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 delay figures matter less here than the 3.26% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 8am–11am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 1,334 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHL to CMH questions
How often is PHL 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 20.8% of the 1,382 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHL to CMH?
Republic Airways leads at 84.5% on time across 546 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 71.9%, a gap of 13 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 PHL to CMH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 74.0%, 13 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 PHL to CMH?
July is the weakest month at 60.0% on time, compared with 92.2% in April. Across the year that is 32 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 PHL — the return legseparate record
- Philadelphia International (PHL) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on PHL to CMH84.5%
- PSA Airlines on PHL to CMH81.3%
- American Airlines on PHL to CMH71.9%
- PHL to ATL, a related route79.2%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.1%
- PHL to MCO, a related route72.4%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.5%
- PSA Airlines on-time record81.3%
- American Airlines on-time record71.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
Direction matters. PHL to CMH and CMH to PHL are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed PHL to CMH’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.