Route reliability record
DTW→LGA
Detroit to New York
- Flights
- 3,862
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 502 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 5.4% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a C− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 3,862 DTW to LGA flights, of which Republic Airways flew 1,052 at 76.8% on time.
Best time to fly DTW to LGA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Saturday. Flights in that window arrived on time 84.9% of the time and Saturday flights 80.3%, against 74.7% for the route overall.
Republic Airways is the most reliable of the three carriers covered here at 76.8% on time across 1,052 flights.
Key figures
On time
74.7%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 3,644 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
5.44%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
76.8% on time across 1,052 flights
These figures cover 3,862 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.3% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LGA
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. Republic Airways arrives on time 76.8% of the time; Spirit Airlines manages 67.9%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 829 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 1,052 | 76.8% | 80 min | 5.80% | B− |
| Delta Air Lines | 1,981 | 76.4% | 74 min | 4.04% | B− |
| Spirit Airlines | 829 | 67.9% | 76 min | 8.32% | C− |
Spirit Airlines cancels 8.3% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
Flight by flight
Flights on DTW to LGA
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 New York
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. DTW → JFKDetroit to New York | JetBlue Airways | 79.1% | 84.6% | 6.52% | 5am–8am, Fri | — |
| 2. DTW → JFKDetroit to New York | Delta Air Lines | 77.0% | 79.7% | 3.37% | 8am–11am, Wed | DL 2934 16:18 |
| 3. DTW → EWRDetroit to Newark | Republic Airways | 76.5% | 81.8% | 6.43% | 8am–11am, Wed | — |
| 4. DTW → LGADetroit to New York | Delta Air Lines | 73.3% | 76.4% | 4.04% | 5am–8am, Sat | DL 1487 07:00 |
| 5. DTW → EWRDetroit to Newark | Delta Air Lines | 72.5% | 75.4% | 3.91% | 5am–8am, Tue | DL 2566 07:00 |
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 24 points, against 9 points between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am789 flights84.9%
- 8am–11am693 flights83.0%
- 11am–2pm540 flights75.0%
- 2pm–5pm539 flights73.0%
- 5pm–8pm732 flights61.3%
- 8pm–5am569 flights68.5%
Scale runs 55% to 90%.
The 5pm–8pm window is where this operation falls apart: 61.3% on time, against 84.9% for the 5am–8am 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 5am–8am window is the busiest, with 789 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter DTW to LGA 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 LGA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 84.9% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 61.3%, a wide gap of 23.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am84.9%
- 8–11am83.0%
- 11am–2pm75.0%
- 2–5pm73.0%
- 5–8pm61.3%
- 8pm–5am68.5%
best all US flightsScale 55% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 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 65.0% on time, against 83.3% 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 386 flights.
Across the week, Saturday is the strongest day at 80.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 11 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
National Airspace System accounts for 47% of the 70,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%National Airspace System
- 29%Carrier
- 19%Late-arriving aircraft
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
47% of delay minutes are charged to the National Airspace System: air traffic volume, runway configuration, ground stops. No carrier can price its way out of that, which is why airport choice moves the number here more than carrier choice does. That is 33,000 minutes out of 70,000, against a national NAS share of 21%. The split is drawn from 69,768 reported delay minutes.
Cancellations run at 5.44%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.3% 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.
The 502 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 77.3% on time across 3,861 flights, within 3 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 3,862 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 LGA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 5.44% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you a little over an hour; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 3,644 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
DTW to LGA questions
How often is DTW to LGA 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 25.3% of the 3,862 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on DTW to LGA?
Republic Airways leads at 76.8% on time across 1,052 flights. Spirit Airlines is at the other end on 67.9%, a gap of 9 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 LGA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 84.9% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 61.3%, 24 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 LGA?
December is the weakest month at 65.0% on time, compared with 83.3% in September. Across the year that is 18 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
- LGA to DTW — the return legseparate record
- Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW) delay statistics
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on DTW to LGA76.8%
- Delta Air Lines on DTW to LGA76.4%
- Spirit Airlines on DTW to LGA67.9%
- DTW to ORD, a related route72.2%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DTW to ATL, a related route78.9%
- Republic Airways on-time record76.8%
- Delta Air Lines on-time record76.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record67.9%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.05 million flight records
Direction matters. DTW to LGA and LGA 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.