Route reliability record
DTW→LAX
Detroit to Los Angeles
- Flights
- 2,361
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 1,979 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 2,361 DTW to LAX flights, of which Delta Air Lines flew 1,954 at 75.8% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to LAX: a 8am–11am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 81.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 79.6%, against 75.8% 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
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 2,334 completed flights
Avg delay
59 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.06%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Delta
75.8% on time across 1,954 flights
These figures cover 2,361 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 4 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LAX
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlinesthin sample | 2 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,954 | 75.8% | 58 min | 0.92% | B+ |
| Spirit Airlines | 405 | 75.6% | 64 min | 1.73% | B |
No carrier stands out. Delta tops the table at 75.8%, half a point clear of the bottom, which is inside the range this kind of sample moves year to year.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to LAX
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 Los Angeles
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 → LAXDetroit to Los Angeles | Delta Air Lines | 75.1% | 75.8% | 0.92% | 11am–2pm, Tue | DL 634 12:30 |
| 2. DTW → LAXDetroit to Los Angeles | Spirit Airlines | 74.3% | 75.6% | 1.73% | 8am–11am, 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 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am2 flights—
- 8am–11am479 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm415 flights80.4%
- 2pm–5pm490 flights77.8%
- 5pm–8pm483 flights74.2%
- 8pm–5am492 flights65.6%
Scale runs 55% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the morning departure. Flights leaving between 8am–11am arrive on time 81.7% of the time, against 65.6% for the overnight window. That is 16 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 492 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to LAX 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 LAX, the best departure window is 8am–11am at 81.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 65.6%, a wide gap of 16.1 points. All US flights leaving 8am–11am ran 83.9%.
- 5–8am—
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm80.4%
- 2–5pm77.8%
- 5–8pm74.2%
- 8pm–5am65.6%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%. Cells under 30 flights show a dash.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 26 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 62.6% on time, against 88.2% 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. October was the busiest month here, with 234 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 79.6% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.4%, a spread of 8 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carrier accounts for 54% of the 33,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 54%Carrier
- 21%Late-arriving aircraft
- 21%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
The largest share of delay minutes, 54%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 18,000 of the 33,000 delay minutes reported here. The split is drawn from 33,156 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations sit at 1.06% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.2% 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 1,979 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 82.2% on time across 2,364 flights, 6 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 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 2,361 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 LAX 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 88.2% on time and December 62.6%, a swing of 26 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 2,334 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LAX questions
How often is DTW to LAX 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 24.2% of the 2,361 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 LAX?
Delta Air Lines leads at 75.8% on time across 1,954 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 75.6%, a gap of half a point. 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 LAX?
The 8am–11am departure window is the strongest at 81.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 65.6%, 16 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 LAX?
December is the weakest month at 62.6% on time, compared with 88.2% in September. Across the year that is 26 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
- LAX to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Los Angeles International (LAX) delay statistics
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to LAX75.8%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to LAX75.6%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- SFO to LAX, a related route70.9%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- American Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record75.8%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record75.6%
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
- Worst months to fly in the US, ranked by the data
Direction matters. DTW to LAX and LAX 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.