Route reliability record
DTW→BUF
Detroit to Buffalo
- Flights
- 1,294
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 241 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 2 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 an hour and a half on average. That rests on 1,294 DTW to BUF flights, of which SkyWest Airlines flew 844 at 79.6% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to BUF: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 89.3% of the time and Thursday flights 84.9%, against 79.2% 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
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,271 completed flights
Avg delay
96 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.78%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
79.6% on time across 844 flights
These figures cover 1,294 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to BUF
The two carriers here are closely matched: 2 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 7 | 100.0% | — | 14.29% | A− |
| SkyWest Airlines | 844 | 79.6% | 92 min | 1.30% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 443 | 78.0% | 103 min | 2.48% | B |
No carrier stands out. SkyWest tops the table at 79.6%, 2 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Buffalo
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → BUFDetroit to Buffalo | SkyWest Airlines | 78.6% | 79.6% | 1.30% | 5am–8am, Thu | — |
| 2. DTW → BUFDetroit to Buffalo | Delta Air Lines | 76.1% | 78.0% | 2.48% | 2pm–5pm, Thu | — |
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 matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 14 points, against 2 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am170 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am231 flights77.5%
- 11am–2pm70 flights81.2%
- 2pm–5pm316 flights78.6%
- 5pm–8pm144 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am363 flights77.0%
Scale runs 65% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 89.3% of the time, against 75.5% for the evening window. That is 14 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 363 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to BUF 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 BUF, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 89.3% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 75.5%, a wide gap of 13.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am89.3%
- 8–11am77.5%
- 11am–2pm81.2%
- 2–5pm78.6%
- 5–8pm75.5%
- 8pm–5am77.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 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.
December is the weak month at 59.6% on time, against 89.1% 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. July was the busiest month here, with 150 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 84.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 67% of the 25,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 67%Carrier
- 17%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
- 7%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 17% 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 2.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 25,373 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 67%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 17,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.78% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
At 241 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 runs 81.7% on time across 1,294 flights, within 3 points 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 1,294 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 BUF 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. October runs 89.1% on time and December 59.6%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,271 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to BUF questions
How often is DTW to BUF 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 20.8% of the 1,294 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to BUF?
SkyWest Airlines leads at 79.6% on time across 844 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 78.0%, a gap of 2 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 DTW to BUF?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 89.3% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 75.5%, 14 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 December delays on DTW to BUF?
December is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 89.1% in October. Across the year that is 29 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
- BUF to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to BUF79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to BUF78.0%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to BUF, a related route70.4%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record100.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record79.6%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record78.0%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to BUF and BUF 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.