Exemplary mechanical properties made carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates to find their place in automotive, defence and process industries. In this work, a comprehensive investigation is carried out on the vibration, thrust force, fiber pull-out, surface roughness and delamination while drilling CFRP laminates. The drilling is accomplished with different cutting velocities and feed rates under two environment viz. dry and chilled air. The investigation revealed the dominance of feed rate over cutting velocity on the measured output parameters. Drilling-induced vibrations are found to be increasing with increased feed rates. Under identical machining condition, chilled air environment could reduce the delamination factor to the maximum of about 19.49% and thus helps in mitigating the delamination and achieving good quality drilled holes. © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd.