Carrier route record
AAPHX→CMH
American Airlines · Phoenix to Columbus
- Flights
- 609
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 53%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.
American on PHX to CMH lands a B+, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by an hour and a half on average. That rests on 609 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
76.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 600 completed flights
Avg delay
83 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.99%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
70.6%
Every carrier on PHX to CMH, 1,140 flights
These figures cover 609 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.0% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
American against every carrier on PHX to CMH
American flew 609 of the 1,140 flights on PHX to CMH, most of the route. Its 76.5% on time is 6 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 70.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 76.5% to Southwest at 63.9%.
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) | 609 | 76.5% | 83 min | 0.99% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 531 | 63.9% | 51 min | 0.94% | D+ |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Departure window
When American runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 609 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am281 flights79.8%
- 11am–2pm48 flights77.1%
- 2pm–5pm258 flights72.0%
- 5pm–8pm17 flights—
- 8pm–5am5 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 79.8% on time for the 8am–11am window against 72.0% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 281 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
American on PHX to CMH through the year
July is the worst month at 49.2% on time, 46 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 79.2% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 73.0%, a spread of 6 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late American on PHX to CMH runs when it is late
American on PHX to CMH often beats the schedule: 183 of 600 completed flights, 31%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 141 late arrivals split 42 under half an hour, 33 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 66 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early183 flights30.5%
- Within 15 min276 flights46.0%
- 15–29 min late42 flights7.0%
- 30–59 min late33 flights5.5%
- 1–2 hours late35 flights5.8%
- 2+ hours late31 flights5.2%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 600 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
40 of 162 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 25% of them. 19 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for American on PHX to CMH
The latest arrival of the period was on 2 January 2026, 16 hours 47 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on three of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 2 January 2026 | 16 hours 47 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 15 March 2026 | 5 hours 13 minutes | National Airspace System |
| 27 January 2026 | 5 hours 9 minutes | Carrier |
| 28 May 2026 | 4 hours 36 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
| 17 July 2026 | 4 hours 29 minutes | Late-arriving aircraft |
Delay causes
Why American runs late on this route
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 62% of the 12,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 62%Late-arriving aircraft
- 29%Carrier
- 9%National Airspace System
62% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 12,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 62 to one. The split is drawn from 11,691 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 79.8% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 0.99% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.49%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.0% 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 85.0% on time across 610 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 609 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. 609 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 76.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 600 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 CMH63.9%
- 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
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.