Carrier route record
OODTW→IAD
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Washington
- Flights
- 754
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 68%
- Carriers
- 4
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on DTW to IAD sits in the middle of the pack with a C. About seven flights in ten arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 9 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 754 flights, with a median arrival 2 minutes early.
The national on-time rate over the same period is 77.6%, so SkyWest on DTW to IAD runs 9 points behind the country as a whole. Across a thousand flights that is about 91 extra late arrivals.
Key figures
On time
68.5%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 743 completed flights
Avg delay
92 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.33%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
74.0%
Every carrier on DTW to IAD, 1,115 flights
These figures cover 754 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 15.5% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to IAD
SkyWest flew 754 of the 1,115 flights on DTW to IAD, most of the route. Its 68.5% on time is 6 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 74.0%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of four carriers on the route, where the range runs from Delta at 88.2% to SkyWest at 68.5%. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 (this page) | 754 | 68.5% | 92 min | 1.33% | C |
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 24 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–8am83 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am129 flights74.8%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2pm–5pm264 flights62.9%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am278 flights65.3%
Scale runs 55% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 62.9% for the afternoon window. That is 24 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 278 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to IAD through the year
December is the weak month at 36.7% on time, against 87.8% 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. March was the busiest month here, with 86 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 75.5% on time and Monday the weakest at 57.7%. 18 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 75% of the 21,000 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.
- 75%Carrier
- 12%National Airspace System
- 11%Extreme weather
- 2%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 75%, 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 16,000 of the 21,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 21,423 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.33% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.13%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 15.5% 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 is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 75.5% on time across 754 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.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 754 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 IAD
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 754 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 68.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 743 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to IAD, every carrier
- SkyWest on IAD to DTW, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DTW to IAD84.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Washington Dulles International (IAD) delay statistics
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
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.