Columbus (CMH) TSA wait times
John Glenn Columbus International Airport schedules 122 departures on an average day, and pushes up to 14 of them in a single hour. The checkpoint feels that: expect roughly 15 to 30 minutes in the standard lanes at the Friday 5 am peak, and closer to 5 minutes at Thursday 7 pm.
Security now Modelled
10min
Up 1 min since 9 am.
Standard line. It usually runs 5 to 15 minutes at this hour on a Monday.
The worst it gets at CMH is about 19 min, Friday at 5 am. The quietest useful hour is Thursday at 7 pm, about 5 min.
Tell us your flight below and we will work out when to leave.
A typical Monday.
That 10 is the standard line
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Standard 10minthe default
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PreCheck 4minsaves 6
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CLEAR 3minsaves 7
When should you leave?
Worked from the wait actually running at this checkpoint at the hour you will be here, not a fixed buffer.
Example. For a 6:00 PM domestic flight today, leave home about 4:47 PM. That is 30 min driving, 10 min to park, about 10 min at security when you reach it around 5:27 PM, 8 min to walk to the gate and 15 min spare before boarding: 73 minutes door to gate. Change any of it below for your own flight.
Enter your flight details above to work out your exact departure time.
Leave home by
Trip timeline
Kept on this device, so it is waiting for you next time.
Which security line?
The three ways through the checkpoint at this airport, what each is running right now, and what the faster ones save you.
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Standard 10min
Open to everyone. Usually 5 to 15.
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PreCheck 4min
Saves 6 min. TSA pre-approved travellers. Usually 5 to 10.
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CLEAR 3min
Saves 7 min. Biometric check, then to the front. Usually 0 to 5.
PreCheck and CLEAR are separate programmes. PreCheck is a lighter screening you qualify for; CLEAR verifies who you are and walks you to the front of whichever line you are already entitled to use.
Another airport nearby?
Airports within driving distance of CMH, and the worst each one gets in its own busiest hour.
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Columbus (LCK) 9min peak
6 miles away. 4 flights a day.
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Dayton (DAY) 9min peak
35 miles away. 21 flights a day.
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Akron (CAK) 9min peak
50 miles away. 14 flights a day.
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Cleveland (CLE) 19min peak
56 miles away. 114 flights a day.
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Ashland (HTS) 9min peak
57 miles away. 2 flights a day.
Airlines at CMH
Which airline you are flying decides your terminal and checkpoint. This is the share of CMH's departures each one runs, from the published schedule.
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Southwest 30%
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Republic Airways regional 30%
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American 10%
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Delta 9%
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United 7%
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Envoy Air regional 7%
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PSA Airlines regional 4%
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SkyWest regional 3%
Regional carriers (SkyWest, Envoy, PSA, Republic) fly these routes under the mainline brands, so a SkyWest flight shows on your ticket as Delta, United, American or Alaska.
For the terminal your gate is in, check your airline's boarding pass or the airport's official map. We do not model terminal-by-terminal waits yet, and we will not guess at them.
Is another time better?
The checkpoint is busiest around 5 am today, at about 19 min. Fill in your flight above to see where your own trip lands.
The dark bar is now.
Busiest hours at CMH
Every block is one hour of one weekday at CMH, shaded by how much of the airport's own peak load the checkpoint is carrying. This is the measured half of the page: it comes from the published flight schedule, not from an estimate.
| Day | 12a | 1a | 2a | 3a | 4a | 5a | 6a | 7a | 8a | 9a | 10a | 11a | 12p | 1p | 2p | 3p | 4p | 5p | 6p | 7p | 8p | 9p | 10p | 11p |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Sat |
Darker means a heavier checkpoint load. Built from 11,360 scheduled departures from CMH across three months of federal on-time records.
Hour by hour, Monday
| Hour | Departures | Standard | PreCheck |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 am | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 3 am | 5 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 4 am | 10 | 10–20 min | 5 min |
| 5 am | 14 | 15–25 min | 7 min |
| 6 am | 10 | 10–20 min | 5 min |
| 7 am | 7 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 8 am | 5 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 9 am | 7 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 10 am | 7 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 11 am | 7 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| noon | 6 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 1 pm | 6 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 2 pm | 7 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 3 pm | 8 | 5–15 min | 4 min |
| 4 pm | 9 | 10–20 min | 4 min |
| 5 pm | 8 | 5–15 min | 3 min |
| 6 pm | 5 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 7 pm | 3 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
| 8 pm | 1 | 5–10 min | 3 min |
Questions people ask about CMH
How early should I get to CMH?
For a domestic flight out of Columbus, plan to be inside the terminal about an hour before departure, and about an hour and a quarter for an international one. That covers a 15 to 30 minute checkpoint queue at the Friday peak plus the walk to the gate. Outside the peak you can safely trim it; the calculator above works it out from your actual departure time.
What is the busiest time at CMH security?
Friday around 5 am, when 14 departures' worth of passengers are converging on the checkpoint at once. The calmest hour with real traffic is Thursday at 7 pm, at roughly 5 minutes.
Is TSA PreCheck worth it at CMH?
At the Friday peak it turns a 15 to 30 minute queue into something closer to 7 minutes. Over a five year membership that is worth it if you fly more than about three round trips a year through an airport this busy. The trusted traveller calculator prices it against your own flying.
When does security open at CMH?
John Glenn Columbus International Airport does not publish checkpoint opening hours in any national feed, so we will not invent them. What the schedule does show is that the first departures leave around 2 am, and checkpoints generally open about two hours before the first flight of the day.
Flight schedule data: U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Reporting Carrier On-Time Performance, May 2026, July 2025 and December 2025. Wait minutes are modelled, not measured. Here is exactly how. Page rebuilt 24 August 2026.