Carrier route record
AAPHX→CMH
American Airlines · Phoenix to Columbus
- Flights
- 612
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 52%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to CMH lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 612 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate American on PHX to CMH from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 602 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.98%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
73.2%
Every carrier on PHX to CMH, 1,168 flights
These figures cover 612 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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
American against every carrier on PHX to CMH
American flew 612 of the 1,168 flights on PHX to CMH, most of the route. Its 79.4% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 73.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 79.4% to Southwest at 66.3%.
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.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines (this page) | 612 | 79.4% | 78 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 556 | 66.3% | 47 min | 0.90% | 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 11 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–11am262 flights84.8%
- 11am–2pm44 flights79.5%
- 2pm–5pm284 flights73.9%
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 84.8% of the time, against 73.9% for the afternoon window. That is 11 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 284 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to CMH through the year
July is the worst month at 67.9% on time, 27 points below February, the best at 95.3%. 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 62 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 76.2%. 9 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 59% of the 9,623 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.
- 59%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 8%National Airspace System
59% 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 9,623 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 59 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 9,623 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 84.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.98% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.65%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
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 84.4% on time across 613 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 612 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 PHX to CMH
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 612 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 79.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 602 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- PHX to CMH, every carrier
- American on CMH to PHX, the return leg
- Southwest Airlines on PHX to CMH66.3%
- American Airlines network-wide record
- Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX) delay statistics
- John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.