Carrier performance at one airport
DL→DTW
Delta Air Lines at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County
- Departures
- 60,438
- Period
- June 2025 to May 2026
- Routes
- 25
- Rank here
- #5 of 12
Delta Air Lines at Detroit lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.4%. Roughly one flight in four arrive 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 60,438 flights, of which American Airlines flew 5,018 at 81.2% on time.
Measured against the airport rather than the country, Delta Air Lines runs about a point ahead of the 76.6% weighted average across all carriers at DTW. That is the comparison worth making: every operator here works the same runways, the same airspace and the same weather.
Key figures
On time
77.5%
59,521 completed departures
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed flights only
Cancelled
1.31%
At DTW, this carrier only
Rank here
#5
Of 12 carriers clearing the floor at DTW
These figures cover 60,000 flights between June 2025 and May 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Against the competition
Every carrier at DTW, ranked
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. American Airlines arrives on time 81.2% of the time; Frontier Airlines manages 72.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,735 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 5,018 | 81.2% | 95 min | 2.05% | B |
| Republic Airways | 6,050 | 80.5% | 77 min | 3.44% | B− |
| JetBlue Airways | 1,171 | 78.0% | 84 min | 3.16% | B− |
| Southwest Airlines | 4,418 | 77.6% | 50 min | 0.84% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 60,438 | 77.5% | 66 min | 1.31% | B |
| United Airlines | 2,353 | 77.4% | 78 min | 1.10% | B |
| Spirit Airlines | 9,657 | 76.9% | 71 min | 2.65% | B |
| Envoy Air | 872 | 75.1% | 78 min | 2.87% | B |
| PSA Airlines | 1,745 | 74.2% | 111 min | 5.79% | C− |
| Alaska Airlines | 551 | 74.1% | 48 min | 0.36% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 28,581 | 73.3% | 97 min | 2.04% | C |
| Frontier Airlines | 2,735 | 72.5% | 90 min | 1.72% | C |
PSA Airlines cancels 5.8% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Route by route
Where Delta Air Lines flies from DTW
Delta Air Lines operates 25 routes out of DTW with enough volume to report. Route records inside one carrier at one airport still spread widely, because a short shuttle and a transcontinental have very different exposure to a late inbound.
| Route | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DTW to ATL · Atlanta | 3,701 | 80.2% | 68 min | 0.57% | B+ |
| DTW to MCO · Orlando | 2,177 | 73.1% | 70 min | 0.96% | C+ |
| DTW to LAX · Los Angeles | 1,999 | 77.8% | 62 min | 0.85% | B+ |
| DTW to LGA · New York | 1,978 | 76.2% | 72 min | 3.34% | B− |
| DTW to LAS · Las Vegas | 1,930 | 76.6% | 60 min | 0.52% | B+ |
| DTW to MSP · Minneapolis | 1,876 | 78.3% | 67 min | 0.64% | B+ |
| DTW to FLL · Fort Lauderdale | 1,824 | 73.6% | 69 min | 1.32% | C |
| DTW to DCA · Washington | 1,744 | 68.4% | 65 min | 2.18% | C |
| DTW to TPA · Tampa | 1,716 | 80.1% | 61 min | 1.28% | B |
| DTW to BOS · Boston | 1,711 | 74.0% | 67 min | 1.87% | C |
| DTW to EWR · Newark | 1,621 | 73.1% | 82 min | 3.21% | C− |
| DTW to PHL · Philadelphia | 1,556 | 80.2% | 77 min | 1.86% | B |
| DTW to SEA · Seattle | 1,547 | 72.8% | 53 min | 1.10% | C |
| DTW to SLC · Salt Lake City | 1,540 | 80.4% | 57 min | 0.19% | B+ |
| DTW to DFW · Dallas-Fort Worth | 1,406 | 75.7% | 57 min | 1.71% | B |
| DTW to BNA · Nashville | 1,398 | 78.8% | 65 min | 1.93% | B |
| DTW to SFO · San Francisco | 1,388 | 70.8% | 63 min | 0.86% | C+ |
| DTW to RSW · Fort Myers | 1,356 | 74.9% | 67 min | 1.47% | C |
| DTW to CLT · Charlotte | 1,353 | 82.7% | 72 min | 1.33% | B |
| DTW to RDU · Raleigh | 1,341 | 82.9% | 64 min | 1.27% | B |
| DTW to PHX · Phoenix | 1,336 | 74.5% | 65 min | 0.45% | C+ |
| DTW to MCI · Kansas City | 1,326 | 81.4% | 75 min | 1.21% | B |
| DTW to IAH · Houston | 1,321 | 79.7% | 59 min | 0.98% | B+ |
| DTW to ORD · Chicago | 1,313 | 71.8% | 79 min | 1.90% | C |
| DTW to AUS · Austin | 1,283 | 78.9% | 57 min | 1.17% | B |
Departure window
Best time of day for this operation
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 18 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am5,880 flights87.4%
- 8am–11am16,325 flights84.1%
- 11am–2pm6,952 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm12,625 flights73.6%
- 5pm–8pm5,677 flights69.1%
- 8pm–5am12,979 flights70.6%
Scale runs 60% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.4% of the time, against 69.1% for the evening window. That is 18 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on.
Across the year
Seasonal pattern
December is the weak month at 63.2% on time, against 87.1% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days.
Delay causes
What holds this operation up
- 48%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 48%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. Unlike weather, that is a management outcome, and it is the category where the gap between two carriers on the same schedule is genuinely earned. It accounts for 428,000 of the 884,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.31% against a national 1.80%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.21%.
7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.2%. 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 are the about an hour kind, which a normal layover absorbs.
60,438 flights sit behind these numbers, which is a large enough sample that the headline rate is not moving on noise. Where a sub-group falls below 30 flights the site shows a dash instead of a percentage.
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 87.1% on time and December 63.2%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else.
Common questions
Delta Air Lines at DTW
How often is Delta Air Lines at DTW delayed?
Roughly one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 22.5% of the 60,438 flights in this analysis, against 22.6% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on Delta Air Lines at DTW?
American Airlines leads at 81.2% on time across 5,018 flights. Frontier Airlines is at the other end on 72.5%, a gap of 9 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on Delta Air Lines at DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.4% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.1%, 18 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on Delta Air Lines at DTW?
December is the weakest month at 63.2% on time, compared with 87.1% in September. Across the year that is 24 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, June 2025 to May 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.