Carrier route record
OOBUF→DTW
SkyWest Airlines · Buffalo to Detroit
- Flights
- 844
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on BUF to DTW lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That rests on 844 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on BUF to DTW from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
80.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 832 completed flights
Avg delay
106 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.42%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
81.7%
Every carrier on BUF to DTW, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 844 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on BUF to DTW
SkyWest flew 844 of the 1,294 flights on BUF to DTW, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 81.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.0% to SkyWest at 80.5%. One of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.
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 | 443 | 84.0% | 91 min | 2.71% | B |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 7 | 83.3% | 28 min | 14.29% | B− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 844 | 80.5% | 106 min | 1.42% | B |
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Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
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–8am3 flights—
- 8am–11am218 flights85.2%
- 11am–2pm223 flights82.1%
- 2pm–5pm160 flights83.6%
- 5pm–8pm191 flights72.7%
- 8pm–5am49 flights71.4%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 85.2% of the time, against 71.4% for the overnight 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 223 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on BUF to DTW through the year
December is the weak month at 60.7% on time, against 92.4% in August. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 119 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 85.1% on time and Sunday the weakest at 72.6%, a spread of 13 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on BUF to DTW runs when it is late
SkyWest on BUF to DTW often beats the schedule: 313 of 832 completed flights, 38%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. When SkyWest on BUF to DTW is late it tends to be very late: 84 of its 162 late arrivals were an hour or more behind, and 46 were two hours or more.
- 15+ min early313 flights37.6%
- Within 15 min357 flights42.9%
- 15–29 min late41 flights4.9%
- 30–59 min late37 flights4.4%
- 1–2 hours late38 flights4.6%
- 2+ hours late46 flights5.5%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 832 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
30 of 179 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 17% of them. Only 13 left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on BUF to DTW
The latest arrival of the period was on 14 December 2025, 17 hours 12 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 14 December 2025 | 17 hours 12 minutes | Carrier |
| 18 March 2026 | 8 hours 46 minutes | Carrier |
| 9 October 2025 | 8 hours 20 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 December 2025 | 6 hours 28 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 6 hours 27 minutes | Carrier |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 63% of the 17,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 63%Carrier
- 30%Extreme weather
- 6%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 30% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 5.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,213 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 63%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.42% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 241 miles this is a short hop, and stage length matters more than it looks. A flight this short spends under two hours in the air, which leaves almost nothing to claw back a late pushback with. Delay here is decided on the ground, in the turn, which is why the 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 79.6% on time across 844 flights, within about a point of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 844 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.
What to do with this
Booking SkyWest on BUF to DTW
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 844 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 832 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- BUF to DTW, every carrier
- SkyWest on DTW to BUF, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on BUF to DTW84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.