Carrier route record

AAPHL→CMH

American Airlines · Philadelphia to Columbus

Flights: 489
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 35%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on PHL to CMH sits in the middle of the pack with a C−. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 6 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 489 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.

The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so American on PHL to CMH runs 6 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 57 extra late arrivals.

On time

71.9%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 473 completed flights

Avg delay

82 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

3.07%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

79.2%

Every carrier on PHL to CMH, 1,382 flights

These figures cover 489 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 13.3% 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

American against every carrier on PHL to CMH

American flew 489 of the 1,382 flights on PHL to CMH, about 35% of it. Its 71.9% on time is 7 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 84.5% to American at 71.9%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on PHL to CMH
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 (this page)	489	71.9%	82 min	3.07%	C−

Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 28 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–8am—
8am–11am127 flights82.5%
11am–2pm119 flights78.3%
2pm–5pm103 flights67.0%
5pm–8pm95 flights54.9%
8pm–5am45 flights70.7%

Scale runs 45% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.9% on time, against 82.5% for the 8am–11am 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. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 127 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on PHL to CMH through the year

Jul–Sep 2025259 flights69.5%
Oct–Dec 2025111 flights75.5%
Apr–Jun 2026119 flights73.5%

Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 71.9% on time across 489 flights.

Quarter by quarter American on PHL to CMH held fairly steady: 69.5% in Jul–Sep 2025, 75.5% in Oct–Dec 2025 and 73.5% in Apr–Jun 2026. A spread of 6 points is about what a sample of this size moves on its own, so the annual figure is a fair summary.

Across the week, Friday is the strongest day at 82.2% on time and Thursday the weakest at 57.5%. 25 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
48%
Carrier
32%
National Airspace System
14%
Extreme weather
6%
Security
1%

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 11,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 8 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 10,895 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 82.5% on time here.

Cancellations run at 3.07%, against 1.81% nationally. That is roughly 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 costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 13.3% 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 72.5% on time across 490 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.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 489 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 American on PHL to CMH

Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 3.07% 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. 473 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures