Carrier route record
OODTW→LEX
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Lexington
- Flights
- 570
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Share of route
- 72%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with SkyWest Airlines.
SkyWest on DTW to LEX sits in the middle of the pack with a C. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 3 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 570 flights, with a median arrival 7 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate SkyWest on DTW to LEX from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
74.4%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 558 completed flights
Avg delay
101 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.58%
National rate is 1.89%
Whole route
77.7%
Every carrier on DTW to LEX, 787 flights
These figures cover 570 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 11.6% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to LEX
SkyWest flew 570 of the 787 flights on DTW to LEX, most of the route. Its 74.4% on time is 3 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 77.7%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 86.4% to SkyWest at 74.4%. One 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 217 | 86.4% | 63 min | 1.38% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 570 | 74.4% | 101 min | 1.58% | C |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on DTW to LEX
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.
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time is the single lever a traveller controls, and it moves the odds more than most people expect. Each bar below is the on-time rate for flights scheduled to leave inside that window, across 570 flights.
- 5am–8am—
- 8am–11am156 flights77.1%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm84 flights70.7%
- 5pm–8pm4 flights—
- 8pm–5am325 flights74.3%
Scale runs 60% to 85%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The early departures do better, though not dramatically: 77.1% on time for the 8am–11am window against 70.7% for 2pm–5pm. Worth taking if the schedule allows, not worth an extra connection. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 325 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to LEX through the year
July is the worst month at 60.4% on time, 28 points below October, the best at 88.3%. 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 61 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.5% on time and Friday the weakest at 65.9%, a spread of 16 points.
Arrival by arrival
How late SkyWest on DTW to LEX runs when it is late
SkyWest on DTW to LEX often beats the schedule: 152 of 558 completed flights, 27%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 143 late arrivals split 36 under half an hour, 42 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 65 an hour or more.
- 15+ min early152 flights27.2%
- Within 15 min263 flights47.1%
- 15–29 min late36 flights6.5%
- 30–59 min late42 flights7.5%
- 1–2 hours late30 flights5.4%
- 2+ hours late35 flights6.3%
Scale runs 0% to 100%.
Share of 558 completed flights by arrival against schedule.
22 of 145 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 15% of them. 20 flights left on time and still arrived late.
The worst days
Worst days for SkyWest on DTW to LEX
The latest arrival of the period was on 28 June 2026, 15 hours 49 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as carrier-caused (crew, maintenance, fuelling, baggage). The same cause led on four of the five worst days.
| Date | Arrived late by | Largest filed cause |
|---|---|---|
| 28 June 2026 | 15 hours 49 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 January 2026 | 12 hours 23 minutes | Carrier |
| 30 November 2025 | 12 hours 4 minutes | Carrier |
| 11 December 2025 | 10 hours 35 minutes | Carrier |
| 1 December 2025 | 10 hours 4 minutes | Extreme weather |
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
Carrier accounts for 75% of the 14,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 75%Carrier
- 18%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 18% 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 3.0 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 14,457 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 75%, falls under carrier control: crew scheduling, maintenance, fuelling, baggage. It accounts for 11,000 of the 14,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.58% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.53%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
11.6% 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 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 84.9% on time across 571 flights, 11 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 11 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 570 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 LEX
Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 570 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 74.4% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 558 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
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.