Route reliability record
DTW→IAD
Detroit to Washington
- Flights
- 1,115
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 383 mi
- Carriers
- 4
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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 1,115 DTW to IAD flights, with a median arrival 4 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to IAD: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 87.1% of the time and Saturday flights 79.5%, against 74.0% 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
74.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,100 completed flights
Avg delay
87 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.26%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
68.5% on time across 754 flights
These figures cover 1,115 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.2% 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 IAD
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delta Air Linesthin sample | 94 | 88.2% | 82 min | 1.06% | A |
| United Airlinesthin sample | 39 | 87.2% | 127 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 228 | 84.0% | 53 min | 1.32% | B |
| SkyWest Airlines | 754 | 68.5% | 92 min | 1.33% | C |
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Washington
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. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → BWIDetroit to Baltimore | Delta Air Lines | 80.7% | 81.9% | 1.50% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 1546 10:10 |
| 2. DTW → BWIDetroit to Baltimore | Southwest Airlines | 78.8% | 79.6% | 1.02% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 3. DTW → IADDetroit to Washington | SkyWest Airlines | 67.6% | 68.5% | 1.33% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 4. DTW → DCADetroit to Washington | Delta Air Lines | 67.2% | 68.8% | 2.29% | 8am–11am, Sat | DL 2476 10:05 |
| 5. DTW → DCADetroit to Washington | PSA Airlines | 65.1% | 69.6% | 6.49% | 11am–2pm, Tue | — |
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 22 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–8am141 flights87.1%
- 8am–11am211 flights80.9%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm369 flights70.0%
- 5pm–8pm116 flights78.9%
- 8pm–5am278 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 87.1% of the time, against 65.3% for the overnight window. That is 22 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 369 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 37 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 52.3% on time, against 89.0% in April. 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. May was the busiest month here, with 145 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 65.0%. 15 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 71% of the 25,000 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.
- 71%Carrier
- 14%National Airspace System
- 9%Extreme weather
- 4%Late-arriving aircraft
- 1%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 71%, 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 18,000 of the 25,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 24,855 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.26% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.09%.
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. 12.2% 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 383 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 76.7% on time across 1,096 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 1,115 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 IAD 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. April runs 89.0% on time and January 52.3%, a swing of 37 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of January before you think about anything else. 1,100 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to IAD questions
How often is DTW to IAD 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 26.0% of the 1,115 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DTW to IAD compared with the rest of the country?
74.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 4 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 IAD?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 87.1% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.3%, 22 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 IAD?
January is the weakest month at 52.3% on time, compared with 89.0% in April. Across the year that is 37 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
- IAD to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to IAD84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to IAD68.5%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ATL to IAD, a related route76.5%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record88.2%
- United Airlines on-time record87.2%
- Republic Airways on-time record84.0%
- 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 IAD and IAD 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.