Route reliability record

DFW→DTW

Dallas-Fort Worth to Detroit

Flights: 3,506
Period: July 2025 to June 2026
Distance: 986 mi
Carriers: 5

This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land a little over an hour behind schedule. That rests on 3,506 flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,404 at 83.3% on time.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

75.6%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,433 completed flights

Avg delay

79 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.97%

National rate is 1.81%

Best carrier

Delta

83.3% on time across 1,404 flights

These figures cover 3,506 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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

Which airline is most reliable on DFW to DTW

The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Delta Air Lines arrives on time 83.3% of the time; American Airlines manages 67.5%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 1,621 flights means less than a ten-point one.

On-time performance by carrier on DFW to DTW
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
Envoy Airthin sample	19	94.7%	51 min	0.00%	A+
Delta Air Lines	1,404	83.3%	100 min	1.57%	B
Frontier Airlinesthin sample	227	79.8%	69 min	1.76%	B
Spirit Airlinesthin sample	235	78.5%	88 min	0.85%	B+
American Airlines	1,621	67.5%	70 min	2.53%	C

The spread between Delta and American is 16 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 16 more arrivals inside the on-time window.

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 29 points, against 16 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.

5am–8am882 flights88.7%
8am–11am202 flights83.8%
11am–2pm1,047 flights75.6%
2pm–5pm441 flights65.3%
5pm–8pm760 flights67.3%
8pm–5am174 flights59.5%

Scale runs 50% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 59.5% on time, against 88.7% 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 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 1,047 flights scheduled in it.

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.

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.September best, June worst

June is the worst month at 66.3% on time, 19 points below September, the best at 84.9%. 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. July was the busiest month here, with 334 flights.

Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 78.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.7%. 9 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.

Delay causes

Why this route gets delayed

One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 45% of the 66,000 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.

Late-arriving aircraft
45%
Carrier
36%
National Airspace System
12%
Extreme weather
7%
Security
0%

45% 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 66,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 7 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 66,458 reported delay minutes.

The largest share of delay minutes, 36%, 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 24,000 of the 66,000 delay minutes reported here.

Cancellations sit at 1.97% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.11%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here actually costs

For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 10.1% 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.

The 986 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.

The return leg runs 75.3% on time across 3,509 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.

The sample behind these figures is 3,506 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 this route

Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.9% on time and June 66.3%, a swing of 19 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 3,433 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Common questions

DFW to DTW questions

How often is DFW to DTW delayed?

About one flight in four arrive at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.4% of the 3,506 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.

Which airline is most reliable on DFW to DTW?

Delta Air Lines leads at 83.3% on time across 1,404 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 67.5%, a gap of 16 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 DFW to DTW?

The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 88.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 59.5%, 29 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 June delays on DFW to DTW?

June is the weakest month at 66.3% on time, compared with 84.9% 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.

Where to go next

Direction matters. DFW to DTW and DTW to DFW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Updated monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures