Route reliability record
DTW→AZO
Detroit to Kalamazoo
- Flights
- 995
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 113 mi
- Carriers
- 1
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 995 DTW to AZO flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to AZO: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 80.5% of the time and Saturday flights 80.4%, against 74.9% for the route overall.
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.
Key figures
On time
74.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 975 completed flights
Avg delay
114 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.81%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
74.9% on time across 995 flights
These figures cover 995 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.3% 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 DTW to AZO
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 | 995 | 74.9% | 114 min | 1.81% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to AZO
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.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Kalamazoo
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 2 of the top 3 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → AZODetroit to Kalamazoo | SkyWest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.9% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3986 10:15 |
| 2. DTW → GRRDetroit to Grand Rapids | SkyWest Airlines | 72.0% | 72.7% | 1.00% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | — |
| 3. DTW → SBNDetroit to South Bend | SkyWest Airlines | 69.6% | 70.3% | 0.98% | 11am–2pm, Sat (route) | OO 3900 19:45 |
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 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 995 flights.
- 5am–8am1 flights—
- 8am–11am226 flights80.5%
- 11am–2pm143 flights72.9%
- 2pm–5pm270 flights70.8%
- 5pm–8pm14 flights—
- 8pm–5am341 flights74.2%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 80.5% of the time, against 70.8% for the afternoon window. That is 10 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 341 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 51 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.
January is the weak month at 44.4% on time, against 95.4% in October. 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. June was the busiest month here, with 111 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.4% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%. 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. Carrier accounts for 74% of the 28,000 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.
- 74%Carrier
- 22%Extreme weather
- 4%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 22% 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 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 28,014 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 74%, 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 21,000 of the 28,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.81% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.20%.
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. 14.3% 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 113 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg runs 76.8% on time across 995 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 995 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in AZO after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 995 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 74.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 975 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to AZO questions
How often is DTW to AZO delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 25.1% of the 995 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DTW to AZO compared with the rest of the country?
74.9% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 3 points against it. That is worth a C on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to AZO?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 80.5% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 70.8%, 10 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 January delays on DTW to AZO?
January is the weakest month at 44.4% on time, compared with 95.4% in October. Across the year that is 51 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
- AZO to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ORD to AZO, a related route74.4%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record74.9%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. DTW to AZO and AZO 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, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.