Carrier route record
OODTW→BUF
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Buffalo
- Flights
- 844
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 65%
- Carriers
- 3
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on DTW to BUF 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 844 flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DTW to BUF from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 833 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.30%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
79.2%
Every carrier on DTW to BUF, 1,294 flights
These figures cover 844 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to BUF
SkyWest flew 844 of the 1,294 flights on DTW to BUF, most of the route. Its 79.6% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.2%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number two of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 100.0% to Delta at 78.0%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 7 | 100.0% | — | 14.29% | A− |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 844 | 79.6% | 92 min | 1.30% | B |
| Delta Air Lines | 443 | 78.0% | 103 min | 2.48% | B |
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
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 14 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am170 flights89.3%
- 8am–11am205 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm68 flights80.6%
- 2pm–5pm256 flights77.3%
- 5pm–8pm143 flights75.5%
- 8pm–5am2 flights—
Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
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 2pm–5pm window is the busiest, with 256 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to BUF through the year
December is the weak month at 57.4% on time, against 90.3% in August. 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 119 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 83.9% on time and Sunday the weakest at 73.8%, a spread of 10 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on DTW to BUF runs when it is late
SkyWest on DTW to BUF often beats the schedule: 220 of 833 completed flights, 26%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 170 late arrivals split 40 under half an hour, 45 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 85 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early220 flights26.4%
- Within 15 min443 flights53.2%
- 15–29 min late40 flights4.8%
- 30–59 min late45 flights5.4%
- 1–2 hours late41 flights4.9%
- 2+ hours late44 flights5.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 833 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
Time lost at the gate mostly stays lost. Of 162 departures that left 15 minutes late or more, only 19 made it up before arrival. 27 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on DTW to BUF
The latest arrival of the period was on 18 March 2026, 9 hours 6 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). Three of the five worst days fell in December 2025.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 18 March 2026 | 9 hours 6 minutes | Carrier |
| 5 December 2025 | 6 hours 39 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 December 2025 | 5 hours 50 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 December 2025 | 5 hours 27 minutes | Extreme weather |
| 9 November 2025 | 5 hours 6 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 70% of the 16,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 70%Carrier
- 24%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 24% 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 3.9 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 15,599 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 70%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 16,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.30% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.00%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
10.2% 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 80.5% on time across 844 flights, within about a point 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. 844 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 BUF
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 844 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 79.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 833 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to BUF, every carrier
- SkyWest on BUF to DTW, the return leg
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to BUF78.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.