Route reliability record
AUS→DTW
Austin to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,336
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 1,149 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route earns an A. Close to nine flights in ten arrive inside the 15-minute window the DOT uses to define an on-time arrival, which puts it 10 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs close to two hours. That rests on 1,336 AUS to DTW flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly AUS to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 95.1% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.7%, against 87.1% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.6%. That gap is worth roughly 95 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,315 completed flights
Avg delay
104 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.27%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
Delta
87.7% on time across 1,284 flights
These figures cover 1,336 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 9 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.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on AUS to DTW
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Lines | 1,284 | 87.7% | 107 min | 1.25% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 52 | 74.5% | 63 min | 1.92% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on AUS to DTW
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 15 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am371 flights95.1%
- 8am–11am312 flights90.2%
- 11am–2pm143 flights83.2%
- 2pm–5pm508 flights80.5%
- 5pm–8pm1 flights—
- 8pm–5am1 flights—
Scale runs 70% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 95.1% of the time, against 80.5% for the afternoon window. That is 15 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 508 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 13 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
September is the best month on the calendar at 94.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. July was the busiest month here, with 132 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 81.5%. 12 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 62% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 62%Carrier
- 28%Late-arriving aircraft
- 8%National Airspace System
- 2%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 62%, 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 11,000 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 17,557 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 95.1% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.27% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.30%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.3% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. 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 last close to two hours, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,149 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 79.8% on time across 1,334 flights, 7 points below 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,336 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DTW after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 94.8% on time and October 81.8%, a swing of 13 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of October before you think about anything else. 1,315 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
AUS to DTW questions
How often is AUS to DTW delayed?
About one flight in eight arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 12.9% of the 1,336 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is AUS to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
87.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 10 points in its favour. That is worth a A on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on AUS to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 95.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 80.5%, 15 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 October delays on AUS to DTW?
October is the weakest month at 81.8% on time, compared with 94.8% in September. Across the year that is 13 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
- DTW to AUS — the return legseparate record
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- AUS to DEN, a related route78.4%
- ORD to DTW, a related route70.6%
- AUS to DFW, a related route73.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.7%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record74.5%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. AUS to DTW and DTW to AUS are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed AUS to DTW’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.