Carrier route record
OODTW→LEX
SkyWest Airlines · Detroit to Lexington
- Flights
- 520
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Share of route
- 66%
- Carriers
- 2
Historical statistics for July 2025 to June 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, 4 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. The late ones land close to two hours behind schedule. That rests on 520 flights, with a median arrival 6 minutes early.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, 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
73.9%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 510 completed flights
Avg delay
111 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
1.73%
National rate is 1.81%
Whole route
78.3%
Every carrier on DTW to LEX, 785 flights
These figures cover 520 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 12.5% 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
SkyWest against every carrier on DTW to LEX
SkyWest flew 520 of the 785 flights on DTW to LEX, most of the route. Its 73.9% on time is 4 points worse than the route as a whole, which runs 78.3%. Ranked by on-time rate it is last of two carriers on the route, where the range runs from Republic at 87.0% to SkyWest at 73.9%. 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 | 265 | 87.0% | 67 min | 1.13% | A |
| SkyWest Airlines (this page) | 520 | 73.9% | 111 min | 1.73% | C |
Flight by flight
SkyWest flight numbers on DTW to LEX
Departure window
When SkyWest runs best on this route
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 29 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–11am162 flights76.7%
- 11am–2pm1 flights—
- 2pm–5pm29 flights—
- 5pm–8pm39 flights47.4%
- 8pm–5am289 flights76.4%
Scale runs 40% to 80%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 47.4% on time, against 76.7% for the 8am–11am 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 289 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
SkyWest on DTW to LEX through the year
July is the worst month at 38.7% on time, 50 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 82.7% on time and Friday the weakest at 66.2%. 17 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why SkyWest runs late on this route
One category carries most of the weight here. Carrier accounts for 79% of the 15,000 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.
- 79%Carrier
- 15%Extreme weather
- 7%National Airspace System
Extreme weather accounts for 15% 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 14,817 reported delay minutes.
The largest share of delay minutes, 79%, 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 12,000 of the 15,000 delay minutes reported here.
Cancellations sit at 1.73% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.19%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here costs
For anyone connecting, the number to weigh is not the on-time rate but the tail behind it. 12.5% 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 8am–11am window matters as much as it does.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 82.9% on time across 521 flights, 9 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 9 points of difference.
One caution: this is a thin sample. 520 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. 520 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 73.9% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 510 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Related
Where to go next
- DTW to LEX, every carrier
- SkyWest on LEX to DTW, the return leg
- Republic Airways on DTW to LEX87.0%
- SkyWest Airlines network-wide record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
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.