Route reliability record
PHX→CMH
Phoenix to Columbus
- Flights
- 1,140
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,670 mi
- Carriers
- 2
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, 7 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,140 PHX to CMH flights, of which American Airlines flew 609 at 76.5% on time.
Best time to fly PHX to CMH: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.0% of the time and Saturday flights 77.3%, against 70.6% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.3%, so this route runs 7 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 67 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
70.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,124 completed flights
Avg delay
65 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.96%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
American
76.5% on time across 609 flights
These figures cover 1,140 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.0% 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 PHX to CMH
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 76.5% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 63.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 531 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 609 | 76.5% | 83 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 531 | 63.9% | 51 min | 0.94% | D+ |
The spread between American and Southwest is 13 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 13 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Phoenix 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. PHX → CMHPhoenix to Columbus | American Airlines | 75.7% | 76.5% | 0.99% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
| 2. PHX → CMHPhoenix to Columbus | Southwest Airlines | 63.3% | 63.9% | 0.94% | 8am–11am, Sat | — |
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 25 points, against 13 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am14 flights—
- 8am–11am426 flights79.0%
- 11am–2pm81 flights75.3%
- 2pm–5pm360 flights71.0%
- 5pm–8pm253 flights54.2%
- 8pm–5am6 flights—
Scale runs 45% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 79.0% 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 426 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter PHX 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 PHX to CMH, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 79.0% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 54.2%, a wide gap of 24.8 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am79.0%
- 11am–2pm75.3%
- 2–5pm71.0%
- 5–8pm54.2%
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 45% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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 50.5% on time, 30 points below April, the best at 80.9%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 128 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 77.3% on time and Thursday the weakest at 67.6%, a spread of 10 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 59% of the 21,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 11%National Airspace System
- 0%Security
59% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 21,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 to one. The split is drawn from 21,331 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 79.0% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.96% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.44%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.0% 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 1,670 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.7% on time across 1,141 flights, 12 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 12 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,140 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. April runs 80.9% on time and July 50.5%, a swing of 30 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,124 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
PHX to CMH questions
How often is PHX to CMH delayed?
Roughly one flight in three arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 29.4% of the 1,140 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on PHX to CMH?
American Airlines leads at 76.5% on time across 609 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 63.9%, 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 PHX to CMH?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 79.0% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 54.2%, 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 PHX to CMH?
July is the weakest month at 50.5% on time, compared with 80.9% in April. Across the year that is 30 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 PHX — the return legseparate record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- American Airlines on PHX to CMH76.5%
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to CMH63.9%
- PHX to DEN, a related route76.7%
- ORD to CMH, a related route73.5%
- PHX to LAX, a related route82.1%
- American Airlines on-time record76.5%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record63.9%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. PHX to CMH and CMH to PHX 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.