Carrier route record

OOBUF→DTW

SkyWest Airlines · Buffalo to Detroit

Flights: 641
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Share of route: 59%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.

SkyWest on BUF to DTW lands a B, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 641 flights, with a median arrival 11 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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.

On time

79.7%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 631 completed flights

Avg delay

116 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.56%

National rate is 1.81%

Whole route

81.5%

Every carrier on BUF to DTW, 1,091 flights

These figures cover 641 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.

Carrier by carrier

SkyWest against every carrier on BUF to DTW

SkyWest flew 641 of the 1,091 flights on BUF to DTW, most of the route. Its 79.7% on time is 2 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 81.5%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 84.1% to SkyWest at 79.7%. 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.

On-time performance by carrier on BUF to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Delta Air Lines	443	84.1%	108 min	1.81%	B
Republic Airwaysthin sample	7	83.3%	28 min	14.29%	B−
SkyWest Airlines (this page)	641	79.7%	116 min	1.56%	B

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. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am3 flights—
8am–11am165 flights82.2%
11am–2pm161 flights82.8%
2pm–5pm98 flights86.7%
5pm–8pm193 flights72.5%
8pm–5am21 flights—

Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The best window here is not the first bank but the 2pm–5pm slot at 86.7% on time, ahead of 5pm–8pm at 72.5%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 193 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

SkyWest on BUF to DTW through the year

Jul–Sep 202534 flights85.3%
Oct–Dec 2025242 flights80.4%
Jan–Mar 2026106 flights67.3%
Apr–Jun 2026259 flights83.3%

Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

Monthly volumes are too low here to break the year into twelve reliable readings. What the twelve-month total says is 79.7% on time across 641 flights.

SkyWest on BUF to DTW did not run the same all year. Its best quarter was Jul–Sep 2025 at 85.3% on time and its weakest Jan–Mar 2026 at 67.3%, a swing of 18 points on roughly 160 flights a quarter. The twelve-month rate averages over that, so if you are flying in a weak quarter the quarter's own figure is the better guide.

Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.6%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why SkyWest runs late on this route

One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 60% of the 15,000 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.

Carrier
60%
Extreme weather
33%
National Airspace System
7%

Extreme weather accounts for 33% 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 5.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,796 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 60%, 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 8,807 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.56% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.8% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.1% nationally. A 45-minute layover does not survive that, and no amount of walking quickly changes it. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.

The return leg runs 79.2% on time across 641 flights, within half 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. 641 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. 641 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 79.7% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 631 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

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.

Key figures