Carrier route record
DLDTW→DFW
Delta Air Lines · Detroit to Dallas-Fort Worth
- Flights
- 1,405
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 40%
- Carriers
- 5
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with Delta Air Lines.
Delta on DTW to DFW 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 about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,405 flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate Delta on DTW to DFW 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 1,369 completed flights
Avg delay
57 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.71%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
75.3%
Every carrier on DTW to DFW, 3,509 flights
These figures cover 1,405 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 5 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.
Carrier by carrier
Delta against every carrier on DTW to DFW
Delta flew 1,405 of the 3,509 flights on DTW to DFW, about 40% of it. Its 76.3% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 75.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is number three of five carriers on the route, where the range runs from Envoy at 94.7% to Frontier at 59.8%. Three 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Envoy Airthin sample | 19 | 94.7% | 136 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 237 | 77.7% | 62 min | 1.27% | B |
| Delta Air Lines (this page) | 1,405 | 76.3% | 57 min | 1.71% | B |
| American Airlines | 1,621 | 75.9% | 92 min | 2.71% | B |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 227 | 59.8% | 85 min | 3.52% | D− |
Flight by flight
Delta flight numbers on DTW to DFW
Departure window
When Delta runs best on this route
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 1,405 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am363 flights79.5%
- 11am–2pm365 flights80.5%
- 2pm–5pm315 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm2 flights—
- 8pm–5am360 flights72.6%
Scale runs 65% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The best window here is not the first bank but the 11am–2pm slot at 80.5% on time, ahead of 2pm–5pm at 72.2%. Where the curve peaks mid-day rather than at dawn, the constraint is usually congestion at one end rather than the aircraft's own rotation. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 365 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
Delta on DTW to DFW through the year
January is the weak month at 63.6% on time, against 86.9% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 124 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 82.9% on time and Saturday the weakest at 68.9%. 14 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why Delta runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 45% of the 18,000 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.
- 45%Carrier
- 33%National Airspace System
- 20%Late-arriving aircraft
- 3%Extreme weather
33% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 6,027 minutes out of 18,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 18,387 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 45%, 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 8,239 of the 18,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.71% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.85%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
7.8% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 986 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. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 83.3% on time across 1,404 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 1,405 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.
What to do with this
Booking Delta on DTW to DFW
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. October runs 86.9% on time and January 63.6%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,369 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to DFW, every carrier
- Delta on DFW to DTW, the return leg
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to DFW77.7%
- American Airlines on DTW to DFW75.9%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to DFW59.8%
- Delta Air Lines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
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.