Route reliability record
DTW→LAS
Detroit to Las Vegas
- Flights
- 2,768
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,749 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 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,768 DTW to LAS flights, of which Spirit Airlines flew 437 at 79.2% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to LAS: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Thursday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Thursday flights 77.9%, 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 2,749 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.61%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Spirit
79.2% on time across 437 flights
These figures cover 2,768 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.1% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
Fare search by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LAS
The two carriers here are closely matched: 5 points separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spirit Airlines | 437 | 79.2% | 50 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,880 | 73.8% | 63 min | 0.59% | C+ |
| Southwest Airlinesthin sample | 349 | 67.7% | 45 min | 0.00% | C+ |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 102 | 65.0% | 79 min | 1.96% | C |
No carrier stands out. Spirit tops the table at 79.2%, 5 points clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to LAS
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.
Timetable by Aviasales, a Travelpayouts partner. Booking through it may earn this site a commission at no cost to you; it changes no figure here.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Detroit to Las Vegas
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → LASDetroit to Las Vegas | Spirit Airlines | 78.5% | 79.2% | 0.92% | 11am–2pm, Sat | — |
| 2. DTW → LASDetroit to Las Vegas | Delta Air Lines | 73.4% | 73.8% | 0.59% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 334 08:59 |
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 17 points, against 5 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am166 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am741 flights78.0%
- 11am–2pm614 flights70.0%
- 2pm–5pm364 flights72.2%
- 5pm–8pm478 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am405 flights71.0%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 69.9% for the evening window. That is 17 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8am–11am window is the busiest, with 741 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to LAS 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 LAS, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 69.9%, a wide gap of 16.8 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am78.0%
- 11am–2pm70.0%
- 2–5pm72.2%
- 5–8pm69.9%
- 8pm–5am71.0%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 23 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.
June is the worst month at 61.5% on time, 23 points below October, the best at 84.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. October was the busiest month here, with 309 flights.
Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 77.9% on time and Friday the weakest at 69.1%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 46% of the 43,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Carrier
- 26%Late-arriving aircraft
- 24%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 46%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 20,000 of the 43,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 43,043 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations are rare at 0.61%, 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
8.1% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so 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.
At 1,749 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 80.6% on time across 2,765 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 2,768 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 LAS 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. October runs 84.7% on time and June 61.5%, a swing of 23 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of June before you think about anything else. 2,749 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LAS questions
How often is DTW to LAS 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 2,768 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LAS?
Spirit Airlines leads at 79.2% on time across 437 flights. Delta Air Lines is at the other end on 73.8%, a gap of 5 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to LAS?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 69.9%, 17 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 June delays on DTW to LAS?
June is the weakest month at 61.5% on time, compared with 84.7% in October. Across the year that is 23 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
- LAS to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Harry Reid International (LAS) delay statistics
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to LAS79.2%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to LAS73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on DTW to LAS67.7%
- Frontier Airlines on DTW to LAS65.0%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- LAX to LAS, a related route75.8%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record79.2%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record73.8%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record67.7%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Connecting flights: how much buffer the data says you need
Direction matters. DTW to LAS and LAS to DTW are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
Embed DTW to LAS’s on-time badge on your site
Paste this into a web page. The badge shows the current on-time rate, cancellation rate and grade, and updates every month. Preview it, or build a badge for another route or airport.
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.