Route reliability record
DTW→AUS
Detroit to Austin
- Flights
- 1,307
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,149 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average. That rests on 1,307 DTW to AUS flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to AUS: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 83.5% of the time and Tuesday flights 88.3%, against 80.1% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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.
Key figures
On time
80.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,289 completed flights
Avg delay
53 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.38%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
80.1% on time across 1,290 flights
These figures cover 1,307 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 6 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 DTW to AUS
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 17 | 82.4% | 59 min | 0.00% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,290 | 80.1% | 53 min | 1.40% | B |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to AUS
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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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 1,307 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am381 flights83.5%
- 11am–2pm277 flights80.7%
- 2pm–5pm291 flights80.3%
- 5pm–8pm97 flights80.0%
- 8pm–5am261 flights74.6%
Scale runs 65% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 83.5% of the time, against 74.6% for the overnight window. That is 9 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 381 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to AUS 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 DTW to AUS, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 83.5% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 74.6%, a real gap of 8.9 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am83.5%
- 11am–2pm80.7%
- 2–5pm80.3%
- 5–8pm80.0%
- 8pm–5am74.6%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 22 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 69.3% on time, 22 points below September, the best at 91.4%. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 122 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Monday the weakest at 74.0%, a spread of 14 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 45% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 45%Carrier
- 30%National Airspace System
- 23%Late-arriving aircraft
- 2%Extreme weather
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 6,146 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 13,541 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.38% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
5.5% 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 roughly 55 minutes, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 1,149 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 87.4% on time across 1,309 flights, 7 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 7 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,307 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 AUS 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 91.4% on time and July 69.3%, a swing of 22 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,289 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to AUS questions
How often is DTW to AUS delayed?
About 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 19.9% of the 1,307 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by roughly 55 minutes on average.
How reliable is DTW to AUS compared with the rest of the country?
80.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 3 points in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to AUS?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 83.5% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 74.6%, 9 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 DTW to AUS?
July is the weakest month at 69.3% on time, compared with 91.4% in September. Across the year that is 22 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
- AUS to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Austin-Bergstrom International (AUS) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- DEN to AUS, a related route76.2%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record82.4%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record80.1%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DTW to AUS and AUS to DTW 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.