Carrier route record
OODTW→ALB
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Albany
- Flights
- 796
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 72%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on DTW to ALB lands a B, about a point worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four 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 796 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DTW to ALB from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 781 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.76%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
76.2%
Every carrier on DTW to ALB, 1,099 flights
These figures cover 796 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.7% 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 DTW to ALB
SkyWest flew 796 of the 1,099 flights on DTW to ALB, most of the route. Its 76.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 76.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from SkyWest at 76.3% to Delta at 76.1%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 796 | 76.3% | 101 min | 1.76% | B |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 303 | 76.1% | 82 min | 0.33% | 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 39 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–8am171 flights93.5%
- 8am–11am228 flights72.6%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm335 flights74.0%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am62 flights54.2%
Scale runs 45% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 8pm–5am window is where this operation falls apart: 54.2% on time, against 93.5% 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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 335 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to ALB through the year
January is the weak month at 52.6% on time, against 92.6% in May. 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. January was the busiest month here, with 83 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 83.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.3%. 14 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 81% of the 19,000 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.
- 81%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 13% 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 2.1 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 18,720 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 81%, 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 15,000 of the 19,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.76% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
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. 11.7% 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 489 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 79.8% on time across 796 flights, 4 points above 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 796 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 DTW to ALB
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 796 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 76.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 781 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to ALB, every carrier
- SkyWest on ALB to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to ALB76.1%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.