Route reliability record
AUS→DTW
Austin to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,309
- Period
- September 2025 to August 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 77.3%. When something does go wrong the average delay runs an hour and a half. That rests on 1,309 AUS to DTW flights, with a median arrival 10 minutes early.
Best time to fly AUS to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 94.4% of the time and Tuesday flights 93.7%, against 87.4% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 10 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 101 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
87.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,288 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
87.6% on time across 1,291 flights
These figures cover 1,309 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 10 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.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 | 1,291 | 87.6% | 101 min | 1.39% | A |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 18 | 72.2% | 55 min | 0.00% | 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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am364 flights94.4%
- 8am–11am312 flights89.9%
- 11am–2pm174 flights86.8%
- 2pm–5pm458 flights80.4%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 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 94.4% of the time, against 80.4% for the afternoon window. That is 14 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 458 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter AUS to DTW by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On AUS to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 94.4% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 80.4%, a wide gap of 14.0 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am94.4%
- 8–11am89.9%
- 11am–2pm86.8%
- 2–5pm80.4%
- 5–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
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. May was the busiest month here, with 123 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 93.7% on time and Monday the weakest at 82.1%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 60% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 60%Carrier
- 32%Late-arriving aircraft
- 7%National Airspace System
- 1%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 9,655 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 16,097 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 94.4% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.23%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last an hour and a half, 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.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.1% on time across 1,307 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 1,309 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. 1,288 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 12.6% of the 1,309 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is AUS to DTW compared with the rest of the country?
87.4% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 94.4% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 80.4%, 14 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 route78.9%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- AUS to DFW, a related route74.9%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record87.6%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record72.2%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.