Route profile
CMH→ORD
Flight reliability, delays and best times to fly from Columbus to Chicago, 296 miles.
Right now
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Aviation weather is not currently a factor.
Route reliability
July 2023 – July 2026
Better than 32% of comparable major US routes (4,598 compared)
Calculated from 12,181 flights. How this is calculated
CMH → ORD arrives on time 77.6% of the time; the return trip, ORD → CMH, arrives on time 76.1% of the time.
CMH → ORD spends 34.7 minutes on the ground on a 296-mile trip: 17.7 minutes from pushback to wheels-up at CMH and 16.9 minutes from touchdown to gate at ORD.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics · Data covering July 2023 – July 2026
What stands out
This route holds up about the same all year, a steadier seasonal pattern than 94% of 3,357 comparable routes.
82.7% on time in its best month (February) against 72.7% in its worst (December).
Source: FlyerIntel analysis of US DOT BTS data · July 2023 – July 2026 · Ranked against every other route with the same kind of figure and at least 3,357 in the comparison.
Why CMH → ORD flights are cancelled
July 2023 – July 2026
CMH → ORD cancelled 193 of 12,181 scheduled flights — about 1 in every 63. The reason filed most often was extreme weather, 66.3% of the cancellations coded on this route — about 1 in every 95 scheduled flights.
Share of cancellations
Of 193 cancelled departures carrying a reason code.
What each reason means
Conditions the carrier judged severe enough to stop the flight: a blizzard, a hurricane, a line of thunderstorms.
128 cancellations, 66.3% of the total.
Airport capacity, air traffic control flow programs, heavy traffic and ordinary bad weather. A system decision, not the airline’s.
37 cancellations, 19.2% of the total.
Crew, maintenance, aircraft cleaning, baggage or fueling: what BTS counts as within the carrier’s own control.
28 cancellations, 14.5% of the total.
A terminal evacuation, a security breach, screening equipment failure, or screening queues over 29 minutes.
0 cancellations, 0.0% of the total.
Reason codes are the operating airline’s own filing with US DOT, not an independent finding of fault. Ordinary bad weather is filed under air traffic, so weather’s full share is larger than its bar.
193 coded cancellations were recorded on CMH → ORD; the section appears from 50.
When it goes wrong
July 2023 – July 2026
49 min late
against a median of 6 min early
Percentiles over 12,181 operations; cancelled and diverted flights are counted separately.
Will your connection be tight enough?
Layovers at ORD after arriving from CMH.
| Connection time | Chance of missing | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| 30 min | 38% | Likely to miss |
| 45 min | 22% | High risk |
| 60 min | 15% | Some risk |
| 90 min | 8.4% | Some risk |
| 120 min | 5.8% | Some risk |
This is one leg of a connection. Gate changes and the next flight's own schedule matter too. And a connection can fail before delay is even the question — this route cancels 1.58% of the time and diverts 0.06% of the time, which a late arrival never shows up in.
Chance of missing is the share of 11,981 arrivals on this route that landed later than the connection time less 30 minutes to reach the next gate.
The worst tenth of arrivals on this route land at least 49 minutes late (90th-percentile gate arrival delay), over 12,181 operations.
Any other layover length: connection checker.
Best time to fly
CMH → ORD flights departing 9 AM–12 PM arrived on time 85.4% of the time, against 57.0% for 6–9 PM departures, a gap of 28.4 percentage points.
By departure window
By departure hour
- 12 AM to 4 AM: too few flights to score
- 5 AM: 95.7% on time from 492 flights
- 6 AM: 89.4% on time from 1,215 flights
- 7 AM: 76.5% on time from 1,823 flights
- 8 AM: 79.4% on time from 1,129 flights
- 9 AM: 85.4% on time from 745 flights
- 10 AM: 84.9% on time from 908 flights
- 11 AM: 85.9% on time from 942 flights
- 12 PM: 76.9% on time from 162 flights
- 1 PM: 79.8% on time from 277 flights
- 2 PM: 76.9% on time from 1,359 flights
- 3 PM: 76.9% on time from 334 flights
- 4 PM: 77.8% on time from 692 flights
- 5 PM: 55.5% on time from 778 flights
- 6 PM: 55.6% on time from 764 flights
- 7 PM: 64.7% on time from 278 flights
- 8 PM: 52.8% on time from 232 flights
- 9 PM to 11 PM: too few flights to score
Departure windows with fewer than 120 flights are not scored.
Why CMH → ORD runs late
July 2023 – July 2026
airspace and airport capacity, including weather-driven flow control
the inbound aircraft was late, so this flight started late
crew, maintenance, boarding and fueling, all within the carrier’s control
weather severe enough to stop this flight specifically
screening or terminal security incidents
Share of the delay minutes US DOT attributed to each cause for CMH → ORD. Only delays of 15 minutes or more are attributed.
How this route holds up in bad weather
July 2023 – July 2026
The harder-hit end is ORD, where the flight lands. Its figure counts departures from ORD, so it says more about how that airport copes than about this route. Bad weather cancels 5.5 times the normal rate at ORD against 2.6 times at CMH. Cancelled in bad weather against normal hours: CMH 3.5% against 1.3%, ORD 6.5% against 1.2%. Flights that did leave ORD in bad weather arrived on time 55.7% of the time, against 77.1% in normal hours.
Bad weather and normal hours at the airports
Scheduled departures, July 2023 – July 2026| Departures from | CMH | ORD |
|---|---|---|
| Cancelled in bad weather | 3.5% | 6.5% |
| Cancelled in normal hours | 1.3% | 1.2% |
| Arrived on time, bad weather | 72.6% | 55.7% |
| Arrived on time, normal hours | 83.3% | 77.1% |
| Departures in bad weather | 14,268 | 104,455 |
Of the carriers on this route, Envoy Air (1.7% cancelled against 3.6% for the other carriers at CMH) cancelled the fewest departures from CMH in bad weather and Republic Airways (5.3% cancelled against 3.2% for the other carriers at CMH) the most. One more carrier flies this route but has too few bad-weather departures from CMH to compare.
This route’s airlines in bad weather at CMH
All departures from CMH| Airline | Bad-weather departures | Cancelled | Other carriers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 1,163 | 1.7%below the others | 3.6% |
| United Airlines | 936 | 1.6%below the others | 3.4% |
| Republic Airways | 4,125 | 5.3%above the others | 3.2% |
These are airport figures, not route figures: every scheduled departure from CMH and ORD, to any destination, in hours the weather report called bad. The airline rows count each carrier’s departures from CMH on every route.
Weather source and limits. In full: CMH (airlines), ORD, What Weather Costs Each Airport, Who Cancels More When the Weather Turns, Airports That Change Places When Weather Turns.
Airlines on this route
Carriers with at least 200 flights, by the airline that operated each one.
| Carrier | Flights | On time | Cancelled | Median delay | Severe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Air | 3,869 | 76.4% | 1.21% | -6 min | 9.4% |
| Republic Airways | 3,471 | 87.5% | 1.44% | -11 min | 4.4% |
| United Airlines | 3,370 | 70.8% | 1.45% | 0 min | 9.5% |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,224 | 72.5% | 3.51% | -5 min | 14.6% |
Envoy Air flew 32.4% of the 11,934 flights listed. SkyWest Airlines cancelled 3.51% of its flights here against 1.21% for Envoy Air.
Republic Airways arrived on time 16.7 percentage points more often than United Airlines on this route.
Flights on this route
Flight numbers with at least 600 operations here and still on the schedule.
Weekly and seasonal patterns
By day of week
Saturday is historically the most reliable day and Monday the least, a gap of 5.4 percentage points.
By month
- Jan: 73.9%
- Feb: 82.7%
- Mar: 75.5%
- Apr: 79.3%
- May: 80.1%
- Jun: 74.8%
- Jul: 74.0%
- Aug: 77.2%
- Sep: 81.9%
- Oct: 80.6%
- Nov: 78.9%
- Dec: 72.7%
December is historically the weakest month and February the strongest, a spread of 10.0 percentage points.
Reliability over time
July 2023 – July 2026
- July 2023: 66.7% from 223 flights
- August 2023: 76.5% from 260 flights
- September 2023: 86.1% from 259 flights
- October 2023: 85.6% from 266 flights
- November 2023: 88.1% from 202 flights
- December 2023: 88.1% from 218 flights
- January 2024: 69.6% from 210 flights
- February 2024: 87.9% from 206 flights
- March 2024: 81.5% from 228 flights
- April 2024: 80.3% from 259 flights
- May 2024: 73.2% from 277 flights
- June 2024: 77.2% from 232 flights
- July 2024: 78.3% from 234 flights
- August 2024: 78.0% from 305 flights
- September 2024: 83.0% from 336 flights
- October 2024: 87.2% from 336 flights
- November 2024: 79.4% from 316 flights
- December 2024: 77.3% from 317 flights
- January 2025: 78.2% from 295 flights
- February 2025: 79.1% from 319 flights
- March 2025: 78.3% from 347 flights
- April 2025: 80.4% from 392 flights
- May 2025: 80.6% from 416 flights
- June 2025: 68.9% from 400 flights
- July 2025: 65.3% from 398 flights
- August 2025: 77.1% from 407 flights
- September 2025: 78.3% from 411 flights
- October 2025: 72.5% from 438 flights
- November 2025: 73.4% from 392 flights
- December 2025: 58.6% from 349 flights
- January 2026: 72.7% from 303 flights
- February 2026: 82.9% from 328 flights
- March 2026: 69.9% from 442 flights
- April 2026: 77.8% from 464 flights
- May 2026: 83.9% from 459 flights
- June 2026: 79.0% from 450 flights
- July 2026: 82.7% from 487 flights
Over the most recent 12 months (2025-08 to 2026-07), on-time arrivals averaged 76.1% against 77.7% in the 12 months before — declining by 1.6 percentage points.
Data and methodology
Calculated by FlyerIntel from 12,181 CMH → ORD flight records from the US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, covering July 2023 – July 2026. Late means 15 or more minutes past scheduled arrival; cancelled and diverted flights are left out of on-time rates.
Full methodology · Data sources · Report a problem
Related research: How Long a Layover Needs to Be · Two Airlines on One Route · Best Time of Day to Fly From Major US Airports
Analysis last recomputed