Route reliability record
DTW→GRR
Detroit to Grand Rapids
- Flights
- 1,587
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 120 mi
- Carriers
- 3
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, 5 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 1,587 DTW to GRR flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to GRR: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 77.0% of the time and Saturday flights 79.1%, against 73.1% for the route overall.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so this route runs 5 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 45 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
73.1%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,571 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.95%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
72.7% on time across 1,506 flights
These figures cover 1,587 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 14.4% 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 GRR
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 | 65 | 93.8% | 50 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| SkyWest Airlines | 1,506 | 72.7% | 103 min | 1.00% | C |
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 16 | 31.2% | 60 min | 0.00% | F+ |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Grand Rapids
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 → LANDetroit to Lansing | SkyWest Airlines | 74.4% | 75.1% | 0.91% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3687 10:00 |
| 2. DTW → AZODetroit to Kalamazoo | SkyWest Airlines | 73.5% | 74.9% | 1.81% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3986 10:15 |
| 3. DTW → GRRDetroit to Grand Rapids | SkyWest Airlines | 72.0% | 72.7% | 1.00% | 8am–11am, Sat (route) | — |
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 11 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am274 flights77.0%
- 11am–2pm236 flights74.2%
- 2pm–5pm447 flights75.9%
- 5pm–8pm299 flights72.3%
- 8pm–5am331 flights66.2%
Scale runs 60% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 77.0% of the time, against 66.2% for the overnight window. That is 11 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 447 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 44 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 45.8% on time, against 89.8% in September. 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. November was the busiest month here, with 192 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.1% on time and Monday the weakest at 68.7%. 10 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 68% of the 43,000 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.
- 68%Carrier
- 20%Extreme weather
- 11%National Airspace System
- 1%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 20% 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 3.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 42,870 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 68%, 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 29,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 0.95% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.06%.
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. 14.4% 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 120 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 78.2% on time across 1,588 flights, 5 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 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,587 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 GRR 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 89.8% on time and December 45.8%, a swing of 44 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,571 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to GRR questions
How often is DTW to GRR 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 26.9% of the 1,587 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DTW to GRR compared with the rest of the country?
73.1% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 5 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 GRR?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 77.0% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 66.2%, 11 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 GRR?
December is the weakest month at 45.8% on time, compared with 89.8% in September. Across the year that is 44 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
- GRR to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ORD to GRR, a related route70.0%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record93.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record72.7%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record31.2%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to GRR and GRR 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.