Route reliability record
DTW→LEX
Detroit to Lexington
- Flights
- 785
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 296 mi
- Carriers
- 2
This route lands a B, level with the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by close to two hours on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 785 DTW to LEX flights, with a median arrival 8 minutes early.
Best time to fly DTW to LEX: a 2pm–5pm departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 85.2% of the time and Tuesday flights 84.8%, against 78.3% 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
78.3%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 771 completed flights
Avg delay
102 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.53%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
SkyWest
73.9% on time across 520 flights
These figures cover 785 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.1% 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 LEX
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 265 | 87.0% | 67 min | 1.13% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines | 520 | 73.9% | 111 min | 1.73% | C |
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to LEX
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.
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 38 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–8am—
- 8am–11am163 flights76.2%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm281 flights85.2%
- 5pm–8pm39 flights47.4%
- 8pm–5am301 flights77.3%
Scale runs 40% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.4% on time, against 85.2% for the 2pm–5pm slot. By evening the aircraft flying these rotations have absorbed a full day of small delays and there is no slack left to recover in. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 301 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 30 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.
July is the worst month at 59.6% on time, 30 points below September, the best at 89.3%. 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. March was the busiest month here, with 93 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 84.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 71.7%. 13 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 76% of the 17,000 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.
- 76%Carrier
- 14%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
- 2%Late-arriving aircraft
Extreme weather accounts for 14% 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 2.3 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 17,091 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 76%, 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 13,000 of the 17,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.53% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.25%.
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. 10.1% 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 296 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 2pm–5pm window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.6% on time across 786 flights, 4 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 4 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 785 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 LEX after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 785 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 78.3% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 771 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LEX questions
How often is DTW to LEX delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 21.7% of the 785 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by close to two hours on average.
How reliable is DTW to LEX compared with the rest of the country?
78.3% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of half a point in its favour. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on DTW to LEX?
The 2pm–5pm departure window is the strongest at 85.2% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 47.4%, 38 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 July delays on DTW to LEX?
July is the weakest month at 59.6% on time, compared with 89.3% in September. Across the year that is 30 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
- LEX to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to LEX87.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on DTW to LEX73.9%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.0%
- ATL to LEX, a related route85.0%
- DTW to ATL, a related route79.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record87.0%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record73.9%
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to LEX and LEX 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.