Carrier route record
DLDCA→DTW
Delta Air Lines · Washington to Detroit
- Flights
- 1,745
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 59%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DCA 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 an hour and a half on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,745 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 Delta on DCA 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
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,702 completed flights
Avg delay
88 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.46%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.6%
Every carrier on DCA to DTW, 2,979 flights
These figures cover 1,745 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.8% 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
Delta against every carrier on DCA to DTW
Delta flew 1,745 of the 2,979 flights on DCA to DTW, most of the route. Its 79.6% on time is 3 points better than the route as a whole, which runs 76.6%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 100.0% to PSA at 69.5%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 271 | 81.2% | 72 min | 3.32% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,745 | 79.6% | 88 min | 2.46% | B |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 4 | 75.0% | 396 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| PSA Airlines | 957 | 69.5% | 85 min | 6.37% | C− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DCA to DTW
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 32 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–8am362 flights93.7%
- 8am–11am361 flights85.6%
- 11am–2pm361 flights86.7%
- 2pm–5pm—
- 5pm–8pm379 flights61.6%
- 8pm–5am282 flights69.0%
Scale runs 55% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.6% on time, against 93.7% for the 5am–8am slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 379 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DCA to DTW through the year
July is the worst month at 69.4% on time, 23 points below October, the best at 92.0%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 151 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 88.2% on time and Friday the weakest at 77.0%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 53% of the 31,000 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.
- 53%Late-arriving aircraft
- 30%Carrier
- 16%National Airspace System
- 0%Extreme weather
53% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 31,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 53 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 30,769 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 93.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.46% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
8.8% 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 an hour and a half, which a normal layover absorbs.
At 405 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 5am–8am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 68.8% on time across 1,745 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,745 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on DCA to DTW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 92.0% on time and July 69.4%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,702 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DCA to DTW, every carrier
- Delta on DTW to DCA, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DCA to DTW81.2%
- PSA Airlines on DCA to DTW69.5%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA) delay statistics
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.