Route reliability record
CLT→DTW
Charlotte to Detroit
- Flights
- 3,475
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 500 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route lands a B, 4 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. Roughly one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That rests on 3,475 CLT to DTW flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,341 at 86.3% on time.
Best time to fly CLT to DTW: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 93.3% of the time and Wednesday flights 89.7%, against 81.7% for the route overall.
Set against the rest of the country, this route's record is 4 points better than the US average of 77.3%. That gap is worth roughly 44 fewer late arrivals for every thousand flights.
Key figures
On time
81.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,410 completed flights
Avg delay
78 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
86.3% on time across 1,341 flights
These figures cover 3,475 flights between September 2025 and August 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.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to DTW
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 86.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 78.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 2,051 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,341 | 86.3% | 84 min | 1.57% | A |
| American Airlines | 2,051 | 78.9% | 76 min | 1.80% | B |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 52 | 78.0% | 59 min | 3.85% | B− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 75.9% | 70 min | 3.33% | B− |
Delta leads American by 7 points. Real, but small enough that a better departure time on the weaker carrier can outweigh it.
Flight by flight
Flights on CLT 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.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Charlotte to Detroit
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. CLT → DTWCharlotte to Detroit | Delta Air Lines | 84.9% | 86.3% | 1.57% | 5am–8am, Wed | DL 1405 06:00 |
| 2. CLT → DTWCharlotte to Detroit | American Airlines | 77.5% | 78.9% | 1.80% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
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 21 points, against 7 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am545 flights93.3%
- 8am–11am663 flights89.9%
- 11am–2pm742 flights81.3%
- 2pm–5pm262 flights79.9%
- 5pm–8pm610 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am653 flights71.9%
Scale runs 65% to 100%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 93.3% of the time, against 71.9% for the overnight window. That is 21 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 742 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter CLT 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 CLT to DTW, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 93.3% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 71.9%, a wide gap of 21.4 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am93.3%
- 8–11am89.9%
- 11am–2pm81.3%
- 2–5pm79.9%
- 5–8pm74.2%
- 8pm–5am71.9%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 100%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 19 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.
July is the worst month at 70.2% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 89.0%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 321 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 89.7% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.1%, a spread of 17 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 48% of the 49,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 48%Late-arriving aircraft
- 37%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 5%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
48% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 49,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 9 to one. The split is drawn from 48,506 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 37%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 49,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.12%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.4% 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 a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 500 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 runs 83.3% on time across 3,476 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,475 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 89.0% on time and July 70.2%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 3,410 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to DTW questions
How often is CLT to DTW delayed?
Roughly one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 18.3% of the 3,475 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to DTW?
Delta Air Lines leads at 86.3% on time across 1,341 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 78.9%, a gap of 7 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 CLT to DTW?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 93.3% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 71.9%, 21 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 July delays on CLT to DTW?
July is the weakest month at 70.2% on time, compared with 89.0% in September. Across the year that is 19 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 CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on CLT to DTW86.3%
- American Airlines on CLT to DTW78.9%
- CLT to MCO, a related route71.6%
- ORD to DTW, a related route71.1%
- CLT to ORD, a related route72.4%
- PSA Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record86.3%
- American Airlines on-time record78.9%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to DTW and DTW to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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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.