Route reliability record
DTW→LAN
Detroit to Lansing
- Flights
- 833
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 74 mi
- Carriers
- 1
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 77.3%. The late ones land an hour and a half behind schedule. That rests on 833 DTW to LAN flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to LAN: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 79.1% of the time and Saturday flights 79.8%, against 73.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, 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
73.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 826 completed flights
Avg delay
99 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.84%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
SkyWest
73.6% on time across 833 flights
These figures cover 833 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.7% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LAN
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SkyWest Airlines | 833 | 73.6% | 99 min | 0.84% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to LAN
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Lansing
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. 1 of the top 2 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 | 73.0% | 73.6% | 0.84% | 8am–11am, Sat | OO 3684 22:55 |
| 2. DTW → GRRDetroit to Grand Rapids | SkyWest Airlines | 72.7% | 73.4% | 0.96% | 2pm–5pm, Sat | — |
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.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am197 flights79.1%
- 11am–2pm21 flights—
- 2pm–5pm215 flights67.8%
- 5pm–8pm89 flights68.5%
- 8pm–5am311 flights75.2%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 79.1% of the time, against 67.8% for the afternoon 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 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 311 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to LAN by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On DTW to LAN, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 79.1% on time and the worst is 2pm–5pm at 67.8%, a wide gap of 11.3 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am79.1%
- 11am–2pm—
- 2–5pm67.8%
- 5–8pm68.5%
- 8pm–5am75.2%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 35 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.
October is the best month on the calendar at 89.8% on time. Shoulder season thins the schedule and takes the summer weather with it, and the operation gets its margin back. March was the busiest month here, with 89 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 79.8% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 67.5%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 71% of the 22,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 71%Carrier
- 21%Extreme weather
- 8%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 21% 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 3.5 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 21,670 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 71%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 15,000 of the 22,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.84%, below the national 1.89% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
12.7% 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 74 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 runs 74.7% on time across 833 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. 833 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.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in LAN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 833 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 73.6% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 826 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LAN questions
How often is DTW to LAN 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 26.4% of the 833 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
How reliable is DTW to LAN compared with the rest of the country?
73.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, 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 LAN?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 79.1% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 67.8%, 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 March delays on DTW to LAN?
March is the weakest month at 55.2% on time, compared with 89.8% in October. Across the year that is 35 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
- LAN to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to LAN, a related route72.8%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.6%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to LAN and LAN 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, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.